Hi, Went out for quite a spirited drive a few days ago and noticed under heavy braking there were sparks flying past my window. I pulled over initially to make sure my breaks were alright and they were smoking so I put the sparks down to very hot breaks and carried on having fun. Upon trying to clean the car I’ve realised all the damage those sparks had done to my wheels and paint. I purchased some fallout remover and let the whole car soak for about 10 mins which removed all the bits of break that were embedded in my paintwork however the wheels are another story. I’ve attached a picture of a bit of the wheel after using fallout remover. Since taking this picture I have used 1/2 bottle of autoglym wheel cleaner which has made a small improvement but there are still heavy rust deposits. Does anyone know of a good cleaner that will restore the wheels or have I completely fucked them? I was using stock disks and pads when driving. I’ve been wanting to upgrade my pads since I brought the car but decided to use up my old pads first. Can anyone recommend some good daily / fast road pads for the car which won’t cause this kind of damage to the paintwork. Any help appreciated, Thanks
This is the problem with carbon pads,they do cover the bodywork and wheels, and needs to be cleaned off daily if you want to keep the paint in order. Once it rusts on hard..you wont get it off. Something like iron X will do the best job possible..But even this cant deal with it,if its been allowed to build up. Any carbon based pad will be a problem,without regimented cleaning. I had carbotech xp8`s on my car..and the same happened. I have gone over to DS1.11,which hopefully wont be as harsh on the wheels/bodywork.
Wonder wheels is strong stuff I’ve used in the past on heavy brake dust, but be sure to take the wheels off because it’s acidic. For general use I use auto wheels best stuff I’ve used
you need a fall out remover for dissolving metal particals.Normal alloy wheel cleaner wont touch it..
Agreed, and you will need to let it sit and react for a good 5 minutes or so. Bilt hamber auto wheel is the best stuff on the market.
Holy smokes kid, that’s some serious deposits! Must’ve been a shock to see the sparks! I bet the grooved discs have not helped that situation, they’ll be grinding those pads like a cheese grater. Hopefully you can manage to get this off mate - lots of patience and fallout remover! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Brick acid wheel cleaner like wonder wheels will. I've had similar from aggressive pads and they cleaned up but you will likely ruin the finish. OP was on stock pads as well, guess they have no material left on them
You shouldn’t be getting that on stock pads unless you’re worn down to the backing plates and haven’t cleaned for months. Unfortunately any performance pad will produce more brake dust than stock, not less. You need a heavily acidic cleaner like WonderWheels or KKD Devils Juice used neat, to shift the really caked-on dust. A clay bar will also help. All of this will dull the finish as mentioned above but you should be able to get the shine back by polishing using Autoglym Super Resin Polish or similar. A lot of elbow grease required all in all. Always make sure to seal wheels when they are clean and to wash them regularly if you want to avoid this sort of thing happening.
surely if the pads are down to nothing,the disks are now fkd to?Op said he carried on driving.. If the pads are worn down to the backing plates,and it was sparks being blasted onto the wheels,then it will need a metal fallout product on them like magma,iron x,bilt hamer..as its literally trying to shift metal. On my own wheels..acid cleaner would barely touch it. autoglym magma was pretty good,and it turns purple so you know when its getting into it. This and the bilt hamer are much less agressive than acid cleaner to,so less chance of totally stripping the gloss off the spokes.
Wonder wheels 100% removes stuff like that. I done half a day at Snett with one rear pad down to metal [emoji849], afternoons worth of scrubbing and elbow grease got them cleaned up fairly well eventually. Fall out remover didn't do a huge amount. Even using the Carpro paste and leaving that to sit for ages
Managed to clean the wheels up now. Used a whole bottle of bilt hamber fallout remover and a toothbrush (probably not the best for the paint but still better than all the rust). Took about 6 hours to do both the wheels. Safe to say I won’t be driving that hard again on stock pads... Think the slotted discs caused most of the problem. I fitted new OEM pads less than 1k miles ago and I’ve worn the pads down to about 10-15%. My discs are due for changing so will be getting getting plain discs and better pads when I change them. Any recommendations for good pads that are more capable but not stupid expensive?
I was under the impression DS 1.11 are track pads and not suitable/rated for the road. I’m sure the performance is outstanding. It Just might have an impact on insurance if you end up in a smack... they’ll wiggle out of any claim they can nowadays. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Kam were doing a deal on PBS Protrack pads a while ago. I bagged a set but not tried them yet. They seem like a good option for road and track use on paper at least.
thats a eagle eyed insurance inspector that woiuld recognize what type of pads are on the car!. if you are concerned like that,then you might as well stay with standard brembo,as you wont get anything that will improve the brakes without going Ferrodo,pf,carbon lorraine etc..Ds act like a road pad for warm up...even my carbotech xp8`s had no warm up period to bite hard..
Don’t rate PBS ProTrack at all. Good initial bite but other than that not much better than standard. DS1.11 or any Carbotech variant vastly better. These may be officially not approved for road use but in reality are better than standard in every situation if you can live with the dust and noise.
I use PF-Z pads for road use and they are excellent - the dust from them is similar to OEM, i.e. not much. I used to run CL5+ on my R26 and they were very dusty in comparison, but mega feel and stopping power. On insurance, I let Admiral know I had fitted bigger brake discs and uprated pads and there was no change to my premium, just a note on the insurance certificate.
Ds1.11 Destroyed my wheels Andrew. I have yet to find a pad, that's works for me, but does not destroy the wheels. No damage on the road, but damage done on track.
i suppose this is where track wheels come into play...they take such abuse on the track,its always going to be a stuggle to keep them good..
