Best alloy wheel cleaners 2023
Cleaning your alloys can really improve the look of your car. Whether you're gearing up to sell it or just want it to look good, here are nine alloy wheel cleaners tested and rated...
Filthy alloy wheels, along with smeared glass or body panels covered in bird muck, make your car appear shabby. And, somehow, the more impressive the wheels are, the worse they look when uncared for.
The trouble is that the most stunning, usually intricate, wheel designs are also often the most horrendously fiddly to revive. Some reveal so much of the entire width of the rim that it’s impossible to get implements in to agitate away stubborn dirt – unless you remove the wheel completely and work from its inner face.
A good alloy wheel cleaner, therefore, should dissolve tough dirt without agitation, and allow it to simply flow away when water is introduced. In other words, it should be effective on the areas you can't reach easily.
To find the best alloy wheel cleaners on sale, we tested nine off-the-shelf products which ranged in price from just £5 to a whopping £16.50. They clean wheels using a range of methods – some are more traditional acidic cleaners, for example, while others rely on the caustic cleaning of alkaline chemicals. Here we review and rate them...
Top 9: Alloy wheel cleaners
9. Normfest Rimol Gold
Price: £16.49
Buy from: www.amazon.co.uk or www.eurocarparts.com
Contact: 0203 788 7842
Web: www.normfest.de/en/
Overall score: 2/5
Volume: 500ml
This product, from premium German automotive chemicals brand Normfest, is the dearest here. Yet, in use, the product it most resembles is Car Plan's Demon Wheels – the cheapest cleaner we've tried. This formulation really starts to bite when wetted. As with Demon Wheels, if you use water as part of the clean – rather than just for rinsing – you'll get better results. Ultimately, though, with its top drawer price tag, Rimol Gold should trounce the opposition. And, very simply, it doesn't.
8. Mirror Bright Wheel Cleaner
Contact: 0870 241 6696
Web: www.meguiars.com
Overall score: 3/5
Volume: 650ml
Here's a cleaner that's hard to classify. It doesn't claim to be pH neutral, but behaves just like it is – even down to turning red a couple of minutes after application, indicating that it's time to rinse. Cleaning wise, you’re unlikely to be disappointed, unless you've previously used the Bilt Hamber, Chipex or G3 cleaners – which just have the edge. Considering the bottle's 650ml capacity, the price is hard to justify, and while the cleaner is rated safe for all wheels, no mention is made of use on paintwork.
7. Simoniz Alloy Wheel Cleaner
Contact: 0161 866 4800
Web: www.holtsauto.com/simoniz
Overall score: 3/5
Volume: 500ml
This is a good example of why acidic wheel cleaners aren't quite dead in the water just yet. While ultimately this is no more effective a cleaner than others we've tested here, there's an immediacy to its action that newer technologies can't replicate. It's completely understandable that anyone used to fast-acting mixes like this would want to stick with them, but the odds are stacked against them. The main issue is compatibility (wheels must be lacquered or painted) and this harsher older technology is not cheap.
6. Autoglym Clean Wheels
Contact: 01462 677766
Web: www.autoglym.com
Overall score: 3/5
Volume: 1 litre
Surely, these days, acid wheel cleaners are the preserve of cheaper products from budget brands – yet here we have an acid formulation from one of the leading names in car care. Surprised? Well, don't be. Clean Wheels is an amazingly good cleaner. The acid mix needs more careful handling than alkaline and pH-neutral cleaners, and use is restricted to lacquered alloys, painted wheels and plastic finishes only. Fortunately, Autoglym does countless newer brews for other surfaces.
5. Halfords Alloy Wheel Cleaner
Contact: 0161 764 5981
Web: www.halfords.com
Overall score: 3/5
Volume: 500ml
While lacking the debris-shifting power of our top cleaners, this really isn’t far behind. By that we mean that in a few awkward corners of the wheel a tiny bit of agitation was required, and repeat applications may well be necessary on really neglected wheels. The formulation is alkaline, which is safe for use on all wheel types but not quite as surface friendly as the pH-neutral brews. Having said that, alkaline formulas are more pleasant to use than traditional acid formulations, and they're kinder to a wheel's underlying metal when it's exposed through nicks and scabs.
4. Chipex Seeing Red Wheel Cleaner
Price: £14.95
Buy from: www.amazon.co.uk or www.chipex.co.uk
Contact: 01295 258308
Web: www.chipex.co.uk
Overall score: 4/5
Volume: 750ml
A Chipex product performed well in our recent best upholstery cleaners test so we expected great things from this too – and we weren't disappointed. In fact, our only minor reservation came immediately after spraying the stuff on. While G3 and Bilt Hamber disguise their formulations’ whiffs under a half pleasant fruity aroma, this brew just pongs – think rotten eggs or an old school catalytic converter. That matter aside, everything else is good: the formulation simply melts away the grime.
3. CarPlan Demon Wheel – BEST BUDGET BUY
Contact: 0161 764 5981
Web: www.carplan.co.uk
Overall score: 3/5
Volume: 1 litre
The fiver-for-a-litre price makes this the cheapest cleaner here, but it's not an old-fashioned acidic brew. Much like Halfords' Alloy Wheel Cleaner, it uses alkaline action to unseat baked-on debris. In fact, the two products are very similar to use, but we prefer the Halfords formulation. Dirt that the Halfords cleaner melts away required minor agitation with Demon Wheels. Perhaps the biggest usability issue is that this formulation felt a bit too dry. Adding water brings it to life, so if you factor that in, rather than using water purely for rinsing, the cleaning process becomes easier.
2. Farecla G3 Pro Wheel Cleaner – RECOMMENDED
Contact: 01920 465041
Web: www.G3Pro.com
Overall score: 4/5
Volume: 500ml
A bottle of G3 may be cheaper than our winner below, but you only get half as much – making it one of the priciest brews here when volume is taken into consideration. If our winner didn’t exist, you’d probably feel G3 was money very well spent. Its pH-neutral formula is as safe as a wheel cleaner can possibly be (it's usable on almost all wheels, and even adjacent paintwork is fair game), and cleaning power is awesome and effortless.
1. Bilt Hamber Auto-wheel – BEST BUY
Contact: 01277 658899
Web: www.bilthamber.com
Overall score: 5/5
Volume: 1 litre
Since 2007, Essex-based Bilt Hamber has quietly established itself as a car care tour de force, formulating home-grown – and frequently class-leading – products that are often tremendous value for money too. Auto-wheel is a case in point. Three cleaners in this group test pip the rest, and Auto-wheel is the best all-rounder of the lot. The safe, pH-neutral brew is a doddle to use: spray it on, wait until it turns red, then rinse off and dry. Its brake-dust-removing power has to be seen to be believed, and agitation simply wasn’t required on our test wheels.
The products or services referenced in this story have been reviewed independently by our experts. When you buy using the links on our site, we may earn a commission, but this will never influence our opinion or ratings.
Read more product tests >>
For all the latest reviews, advice and new car deals from What Car? sign up to our weekly newsletter here
Best family SUVs 2023
Want practicality, class and an elevated driving position in a relatively compact package? Then these are the top 10 cars you should be looking at – and the ones that are best avoided
