Astral

Finally put the summer shoes back on her! It feels so good--the summer rubber is much harder, the steering is quite noticeably "harder"/tighter, the car follows the crown of the road even more, more road noise,... but so great to be back on the stockers.

I spent WAY too much time prepping the stock wheels for the reinstall. I cleaned the stock wheels (which had only about 6K miles on them) and put on 3 layers of Zaino Z-2 Pro on them, with Z-6 in between (and Z-8 to finish it off).

To show you how slow I am, for each wheel, it took me:

• 20 minutes to hose down and spray ungodly amounts of wheel cleaner, agitate with brush, rinse clean, wash with car soap and a cotton towel, rinse and dry
• 1 hr to wipe down inside of each wheel with Meg's Deep Paint Cleaner, trying to get all the stuck-on tar off and to clean off the middle of the grooves on the inside (towel I used went black), claybar the wheel's face (w/ occasional paint cleaner treatment on a spot or two), and apply initial layer of Z-6
• 15 minutes to apply 1st layer of Z-2 Pro to inside, back of spokes and face
• 10 minutes to remove the sealant w/ a microfiber towel, apply a spritz of Z-6, then apply 2nd layer of Z-2 Pro to face only
• 15 minutes to remove 2nd layer, then apply a spritz of Z-6 to inside & face, and put the 3rd layer of Z-2 Pro on the face (and 2nd on the inside and back of spokes)
• 10 minutes additional waiting time total per wheel to let the Z-2 Pro stay on longer (for about 50-60 mins total on each wheel)
• 15 minutes to carefully remove the 3rd layer and apply a final spritz of Z-8 (I was quite tired and even slower here)

So that's close to 10 hours to prep & clean my summer wheels. Yes, I'm slow, the cleaning did take forever and I could've let the Z-2 Pro haze only for 35-45 minutes to speed things up...

Anyways, the result is a pretty damn gorgeous looking wheel that photos couldn't quite capture:







Summer stock wheel vs winter wheel comparo:

Imp

You planning to eat off them? :D

Shinka in MD

what kind of wheel cleaner do you recommend?

Astral

for my wheels, none. wheel cleaners would eat away at the zaino wax. the sealed wheels (I did almost the same thing to my winters) clean right off with regular car soap (and contact w/ a mitt/towel).

otherwise, i like the eagleone wheel cleaner. but it's an unqualified recommendation, as it seems to work OK for me (before I had my wheels sealed), but I don't know the pros/cons of each.
Actually, the finishing spray Z-8 has such a lemony citrusy delicious smell that it was very tempting to go ahead and eat off them.

Astral

I took some photos this morning, after a bunch of driving, so some dirt on the wheels already, but see that flake pop:



Check the reflection on the top spoke:



More flakey goodness, and check that reflection and light coming off the wheel lock:

Darkrose

Wow, can you come down here and do mine? Free food and beer of course.

r0tor

iTrader: (1)

another "i used zaino" thread... yipee

7andan8

R0tor, your such a party pooper!

The wheels look great Astral, keep up the good work!

toxin440

looks very nice while I dont have the time and or dedication to do that to my wheels I'll still say 'yay! for you'

I cant justify doing 10 hours of work on something like that after 5 minutes of hard driving will have it covered in brake dust and grime. I do clean my wheels with more attention then just "spray on and spray off" but i couldnt spend THAT much time.

Astral

thanks. i am quite happy, probably because i spent so much time.

actually, this makes the wheels much easier to maintain. the brake dust/dirt sticks less and everything cleans right off with car soap, without having to use brake cleaner.

my winters, after being treated similarly and being assaulted with new england salt, only showed some slight yellowing in the spoke corners that i couldn't remove w/ regular car soap. this happened only in the middle of march, so that's mid november to mid march of really easy to clean wheels (through the winter). the wheels are still easy to clean, but i probably need to clay the yellowed stuff (or use actual wheel cleaner).

r0tor

iTrader: (1)

s0rry... just a pet peeve of mine on this f0rum

jcataldo

Just put mine back on. I've got the chrome stockers, i preped my wheels befor i stored them. I didn't have the time to go that crazy though!! I was just getting used to that plush ride with my 225/55/17s snows! What a difference!! Enjoy the weather everyone!!

Joe

DrDiaboloco

Hmmmm.... Something looks familiar here...

Astral

haha nice diaboloco!

DrDiaboloco

Only I haven't switched back to my summer sneakers yet. That's coming up this weekend.

Oh, yeah, and the clear corner install when the wheels are off. Yeah. That, too.

firebirdude

iTrader: (3)

Just Zaino'd the car today. Had a small amount of activated Z-5 left in the little bottle. So it was either throw it away or use it. So I thought... hell.... I'm gonna try it on my wheels. I'll just do the driver's side because I don't know how well/terrible this is going to turn out. After drying I wiped it off.... I seems to work exactly the same on the wheels as it does on the car's body. VERY smooth and shiny. I'm curious to see if it will resist dirt more than the un-polished side. Or if they will wash off easier than the un-polished side. Highly recommend it though.

Astral

firebirddude, ah, a detailing experiment! keep us posted