How to clean wheels & wells with QEW?

MrC

New member
How do you clean your wheels and wheel wells when using QEW? I've read that some use APC 10:1 instead of QEW. I just can't get them as clean as you would with a hose and bucket. How do you mobile guys do it when your limited with water?
 
I do them last and use the QEW solution along with a briuch in the fender wells. I dry them with terry cloth towels. For wheels I use a MF mitt and the same solution, but I dry with dedicated "wheel only" MF.

On customer's cars you may have to repeat the process in order to get them totally clean.
 
I think S&W ( for ease of spraying)or an APC may give better results. The wells are going to be a lot dirtier than the paint.
 
I have been trying out using a 2 gallon deck sprayer with Qew. and 1 bucket with a small amount of Qew in it for rinsing the mitt. I pre-soak the panel with a little shot from the sprayer and then use a chenille covered mitt dipped in the rinse water, then wash the panel, rinse, repeat on next panel. I find that the sprayer has enough pressure to get the wheel wells clean (after letting an APC dwell for a while) and drying with a terry towel. This also works great for spraying off a wheel cleaner and drying with a terry towel.

This has worked better for me than trying to get in the wheel wells with just the QEW solution on a mitt or on a brush.
 
Great topic. I will try some of the different methods mentioned.

Here's what I do. First I prepare one small bucket not sure of the size 2-3 gallon with QEW and water. Spray the tire and well with Meguiar's safe d greaser and let dwell. I take my handled brush from the QEW bucket and scrub the wheel well. Then scrub the tire with the tire brush from the QEW bucket. Wipe the rim with the wash mitt from the QEW bucket. Lastly I wipe the well and tire down with the mitt and QEW to remove the safe d greaser. Take terry clothes and wipe everything dry. Seems to get the rims, tire, and well pretty clean.

On a side note, have you noticed how the QEW leaves some sort of residue or coating behind on the tire?? It's not a bad thing. The tires and wells look like they have a light coat of water based dressing on them after QEW washing.
 
gotcha. I got to thinking about my post. I noticed teh coating prior to using safe d-greaser so that eliminates residue from the safe d-greaser. Thanks
 
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