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I am not the most diligent guy about cleaning up my E92 M3. It is mostly a track car that I also drive on the road.
After doing few track days and not cleaning my wheels, the wheels developed dreadful crust that was a combination of road dirt, brake dust and melted rubber.
I spent days cleaning the wheels. I tried any chemical I can find in my house. Finally I settled on WD-40. I soaked the wheels in WD-40, scrape what ever thin layer that got soft and rinse and repeat. It was hard work and took many hours over many days. Nothing I would want to repeat again. Ever if I can help it.
The question was what do I do now. I have about 25 track days this season. After researching the Internet, Youtube and Amazon I settled on Migliore Ceramic Coating. I like it because it did not seemed to be a diluted product, made in the USA and it was available on Amazon to everyone, not just professional detailers.
My goal was NOT to see water bid on my wheels. My goal was to finish a track day and stop at a manual car wash and using pressure washer have the trackday crap, defined above, fly off my wheels.
I applied Migliore Strata Coating in a very thin layer, let it dry out over 8 hours, then applied another thin layer. The goal was to build a multi layer ceramic coat that would fill all the small pits and scratches. Over all I did 5 layers and used a whole bottle on 4 wheels.
So what are the results?
I finished a trackday at Lime Rock Park for a total of 97 laps in 4 hours. The day started wet and it rained on the way to the track. That added a layer of road grime. Then the track dried up and brake dust and melted rubber was accumulated. A perfect test situation.
Got back home and headed over to the manual car wash. Nope the crap did NOT fly off the wheels. I can see water beading on the surface, but I don't care about that.
Got home, and mounted the road set on the car and went to wash the wheels by hand. This is where I saw a remarkable improvement. I used a sponge and wheel cleaning and garden hose.
I was able to EASILY clean the wheel. All the dirt was simply wiped off with minimal effort.
So, I think the Migliore did the job. The key thing is that although I had to use a sponge, none of the crap was really stuck that hard. Making it easy to clean also means that layers will not accumulate from one track day to the next.
So, success, yes. It was easy enough that even I am going to clean the wheels.
Unfortunty, I did not do it when the wheels were new. I wish I knew about this earlier. I also coated my road wheels but only three layers.
I hope this helps for someone with a new set of wheels. The best time for this process is when the wheels are still new.
Long term
I hope that this can be done once a year before the track season starts. I will update the thread over the long run to see if Migliore will last a whole year. For the price, it better be good for once a year.
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