One of the biggest gripes I had when I got my car, aside from the fact that it turned out to be pretty lemony not even after a full year, was the fact that the two front rims were noticeably unsightly in comparison to the two rear rims. Given the fact that one of the cleaner of the two rear rims has been replaced with an even better conditioned, clean rim, it only exacerbates the hideousness of the front two. Conventional cleaning with soapy water and sponge are useless against the kind of blemishes on those rims – they were outright stains. A combination of ceramic brake pads, along with the kind of dust from the rotors that come from ceramics, combined with the heat of brakes, essentially baking the dust into the rims themselves led to some seemingly irremovable stains.
Muhammad Hassan promised that post-purchase, he would have his detailing guys set up an appointment for me and get the rims cleaned, but that never happened. I didn’t want to go all the way to Roswell just for detailing, and he kept flaking out and making up bullshit excuses that his guys were always booked, and I’m fairly certain he was aware of this factor. Either way, I gave up on the situation, regardless of how principally irresponsible that was; a 60 mile drive, in escalating gas prices land, for an uncomfortable situation, and uncertainty of getting resolved just didn’t seem like it was worth it.
So anyway, while I was brogging from Starbucks the other day, being without a book or something more constructive to do, I turned to surfing the interbutts on my phone, and after all my bookmarks were dry, I started thinking about random things to Google. Seeing as how my car was freshly on my mind, I thought to seek out if there were any ways to alleviate myself of the unsightly stained rims on my now, nicely functioning car. Naturally, there are many car forums where people are sharing their ideas, and some sound more logical than others, many of them just more work than others, but I didn’t think for a second that when someone suggested “Mr. Clean Magic Erasers,” that it was serious; I’d gotten a sample of one of them in the mail a long time ago, and they just didn’t seem at all that impressive on interior house stuff, let alone the extremely stubborn stains on my aluminum rims. It wasn’t until I saw the testimonial from one of the forum users who happened to drive the exact same year and model of my car who had the same issue, talking about how the Magic Eraser really did work, did my interest pique. So on my way home from errand-running, I swung by a Walmart, and picked up a pack of Magic Erasers, and decided to give it a shot.
The first picture at the start of the post clearly shows the difference in condition of my newest rim, with one of the original rims up front. Literal night and day there. This picture is of the rim close up; notice how filthy and dark-blotchy the stains are. Stained on so horribly, that you could sponge it with soapy water, dry it off, and run a finger across it, and your finger would be spotless. I honestly didn’t think there was going to be a way, aside from steel-wooling the crap out of the clear coat, and scraping the crud off at a more internal level, to get rid of these stains. “Water and Magic Eraser” seemed so asinine and rudimentary, that I did not get my hopes up in my earnest attempt, but lo and behold, after some vigorous scrubbing, in a moment of shocking truth, some of the stains began coming off my wheel. After this initial discovery, my enthusiasm shot through the roof, and I began scrubbing as hard as my hands and fingers would let me.
This is the wheel after about 40 minutes of scrubbing. The difference is profound, if I say so myself. At this point, I’m completely sold on Mr. Clean Magic Eraser for as long as I live, as far as I’m concerned. However, there’s a slight catch – it’s not so much of a catch as much as I’m trying to convey just how much effort all of this truly was. As happy and ecstatic as I am to know that there is a method to cleaning my rims to close to like-new appearance with no abrasions, this is by no means an easy chore. The sheer amount of pressure, while scrubbing, necessary to effectively lift the stains is painstakingly high. I found my optimum effectiveness literally being trying to scrub out about a square-centimeter at a time, because trying to do any larger area simply results in a diluted effort. Furthermore, as great as the Magic Eraser is, in this task, they will still decompose as a fairly quick rate. After the 40 minutes I spent scrubbing, both Magic Erasers in the pack were mostly disintegrated, and my hands and fingers were very much finished for the time being. I do not look forward to the time when I have to get inside of the lugnut sockets, and hypothesize that the best way might to remove the wheels outright when getting to that point. I’m wishing that there were a Magic Eraser Dremel bit, but at the rate of disintegration the sponges have, a Dremel may as well just spin cotton candy, and after it’s empty just grind scratches into the rim.
But the results are impressive, despite the amount of effort necessary to get them. This will most certainly be a labor of love, and as the temperatures warm up in March and April, I will be returning to such endeavors, as it has now restored my faith that I just might get to have a nice, clean car, that might just work at an acceptable level, once again. So in conclusion, Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, is an amazing product, and I have to theorize that if anyone is in a similar boat with some miserable surface stains on various surfaces, to try this product out first, with simple water, before going to any harsh chemicals. I’m sold for life, as far as I’m concerned.
