There are a few different ways of approaching the cleaning of your engine bay and this depends on how aggressive you want to get. In most cases, simple wiping down of the surfaces with cleaner and rags may be sufficient. In more severe cases, you’ll need to use stronger chemicals along with agitation with brushes, and then wiping away or rinsing away with water.

Let me just start out by saying, this is my EZ Detail Brush (large size) that I purchased 12 years ago. That’s right, 12 years ago. I use this brush more than a dozen times a year and the brush still looks like this after over a decade. I could probably end the review here with that, but I’d still like to shore a little more about this amazing wheel barrel brush.

When you’re cleaning the wheels and tires on your vehicle, you may have to pull out several different types of brushes. These brushes may include ones to clean the wheel face, the inner wheel barrel, and the tire sidewalls. One of my main go-to brushes is the Mothers wheel brush and tire cleaner, which can be used to clean both the face of the wheel and the tire sidewall.

I typically use my EZ Detail wheel brush when cleaning wheels, but while I was away from home and needed a wheel brush for some detailing work, I picked up another wheel brush at the local Autozone called the ProElite Wheel and Rim Cleaning Brush. This brush worked well for my wheel cleaning needs for the next few months, although the bristles are a bit tired-looking.

Washing wheels is an important part of cleaning your vehicle. Neglect the wheels and the car won’t appear to be completely clean with just a car wash alone. Cleaning and protecting the wheels can be approached in a similar way that you wash the car’s paint. The wheels are typically much dirtier than the car’s paint surface since the wheels not only collect dirt and abrasives, but also collects brake dust that comes off of the brake pads. These particles are much more abrasive than the typical contaminants because they can be made up of may organic materials, as well as metallic ones.