Alternative Wheel Cleaners - Optimum Power Clean & Simple Green

I had tested various wheel cleaners pH levels. See here and here. Sadly, my quest to get gallon packs of Chemical Guys Diablo Gel Wheel & Rim Cleaner has not been successful. Firstly, it is almost impossible to get it locally and secondly, importing from Amazon is way too costly. Also, it seems hard for me to find Turtlewax F21 Wheel Cleaner Tesco nowadays. This was the most cost effective, acceptable performance wheel cleaner that is not too harsh that I reviewed. So with the above options getting hard to reach. I had to revert back to my old favorite non specific wheel cleaners.

Optimum Power Clean

I used to buy the small bottle that comes with the sprayer. I decided to get a gallon of it recently. Optimum products are easily available in Malaysia through their authorized distributor Detalien. They even have a dealer in Penang. And if you are not familiar with the brand, you are missing a lot. Check out their site at Optimum Polymer Technologies. I have quite a few of their products (ONR, ONRW, Opti-Clean, Opti-Bond, OPC) and boy they are great.
Disclaimer: I am not advertising for Optimum. I do not receive any incentive from Optimum.

Here, if you were to get the small bottle that comes with the sprayer head, you could only get the repacked version by Detailien known as Alien Clean. There might be some slight variation on the bottles on different batches but they come in 500ml.

If you go for the gallon pack, it would most likely be in its original packing. See below.

For general wheel cleaning, I follow a 10:1 (10 part water, 1 part product) dilution rather than the recommended 3:1 and it does a pretty good job cleaner the wheels and tires. I would say they cleaning ability is better than Chemical Guys Diablo Gel Wheel & Rim Cleaner. For heavier soiling, a higher strength could be use but care should be taken not to get them on the brake calipers (especially untreated brake calipers on Japanese cars). It would tends to "dull" the calipers. It is also important to rinse off before it dries.

Though not as bad as this, it might hurt the brake calipers. Treated (painted/ coated) calipers should be safe.

OPC is not pH neutral. At 10:1, it has a pH of about 9. This is actually on par with some other OTS wheel cleaners that I tested previously. See here.

The beauty of OPC is that it is an all-purpose cleaner. Besides using it to clean wheels, it can be used on any surface with a very mild dilution. It can be use for interior surfaces too. See my interior care post here. Buy one gallon and you can use it for anything, even household items. And the dilution ratio could be adjusted too. Great, right?

Hold on, I have something even better.

Simple Green All Purpose Cleaner

There are two versions of Simple Green APC, concentrated and ready to use (RTU). This can be easily found in Ace Hardware or Lazada.

What I got here is their old packing (maybe?). From their website, I could not find this kind of packing anymore.

Simple Green has a long history in industrial and household cleaning solutions. Their all purpose cleaner is marketed as being environmental friendly, non-toxic, and biodegradable. They openly post their products safety data sheets on their website. Not many manufacturer would do that. If you are interested you could read the safety data sheet for Simple Green APC.

Simple Green APC is by far the one of the most economical when it comes to dilution ratio. 1:10 (1 part product, 10 part water) for heavy cleaning and 1:30 for light cleaning. I personally use 1:30 for all my household cleaning from kitchen to glass to literary any hard surface on my furnitures.

I never used it for wheel cleaning before but I experimented and am really satisfy with the results. Cleaning ability very good for 1:10 dilution. It is also better than Chemical Guys Diablo Gel Wheel & Rim Cleaner. The same precautions of using OPC (or any other strong cleaner or degreaser) apply. Test on small surface first, rinse off before dry, avoid full strength on untested surfaces, yada, yada.

Though this stuff is not pH neutral. From what I tested, it is around pH9 with a 1:10 dilution. This is less harsher than OPC.

So there you have it, my non-specific wheel cleaners.
As with any strong cleaning solution, care should be taken to protect yourself. Wear gloves. Do not inhale. You know the deal. Test on small inconspicuous area first. Use at you own risk. If you feel unsafe, just stick to specific wheel cleaners. I do not endorsed or get paid for any of these products. These are just my personal opinion.

That's it.
Happy detailing.