By Bezor

Occasionally after waxing your car, you may think an odd notion such as, “how can I make my rims looks as good as the rest of the car?”  Terrified by this, you may also think, “What product should I use, which lasts longest if I’m actually going to take the time to protect my rims from brake dust, which product is easier to use?”   The earth stops rotating at such ponder able moments.

What if you want to step up the detailing of your rims beyond the quick and rash drag of a wash mitt across rim face?  Given that most OEM rims are two stage paint (base color, more than likely silver with clear overcoat), treatment of rims is not that much different than putting on a sealant to the body paint.

I’ve offered up my BMW rim for a comparison of three brands and two types of sealant.  Why BMW?  Because it is a handy as a test subject, and BMW OEM brake pads are notorious of dusting.  After washing your car, what will keep them looking just clean the longest? 

That’s what I wanted to know.

In offering my car, I’m providing a means to test which type of sealant works best, manmade poly, or natures own Carnauba wax?      In this comparison of three brands, I hope to show which repels brake dust, and road dirt the longest, and which cleans up easiest after the rim is exposed to what it does best, running around town through puddles, surface oils from the road, loose tar gravel, road-kill, whatever. 

Here are the three products, Rim Wax (carnauba based tho with an integrated cleaner mixed in), and two poly’s, one made by world-famous Menzerna, the other from a relative unknown – Rejex.

(Click each picture in this article for an enlarged view)

After cleaning the wheel with P21S, bushing and hosing off, then drying with a towel, the rim was divided following the natural pie shape of the rim design.  Using the above picture as reference, starting with the “7” in relief from the rim, I applied the three products according to instruction. 

The spoke with the “7” (look to the M of the Roundel) was used to orient the treated spokes.  The spoke with the raised “7” was treated with Menzerna FMJ, a poly.  The left of that was treated with another poly, Rejex.  The third most to the left spoke was treated with Rim Wax.  The remaining spokes were left untreated for a control.  

After treatment, this is the result and will act as the baseline.  Recall that the spoke corresponding to the B in this picture has Rim Wax,  the spoke above M is treated with Rejex, and the spoke off the right  of the W is treated with FMJ. 

Over the next few weeks, I’ll take pictures of the driver’s side treated rim to see which product, Rim Wax, Rejex, or Full-Molecular-Jacket (FMJ) does a better job at repelling brake dust and road dirt.  In addition to documenting which treatment cleans up easier (subjective) and faster with the least amount of elbow grease in order to maintain that clean sparkly shinny look.

Check in at AUtoPuzzles in the coming weekends where I’ll take a picture of the rim, replicating as close a possible the baseline picture, to illustrate the effectiveness of each type and brand.

Enjoy.