Dirty Wheels

[ARCH]

MY SR180 AURIS NEEDS THE WHEELS CLEANING EVERY COUPLE OF DAYS, BLACK SOOTY DUST STUCK ON WHEELS AFTER FEW MILES, HAS ANYBODY ELSE GOT THIS PROBLEM.

[GregP]

I guess you are talking about brake pads dust. This is quite normal to every car after azbestos was banned from the manufacturing process.

[geoffb]

Yup, I get this too with my Corolla and, I'm afraid, that we have to live with it (or so I am led to believe), very annoying though it is. With my Corolla it is much worse with the front alloys which get covered in a thin black film very quickly after cleaning. Grrrr

[Toscane]

I'm pretty sure that somewhere in this forum, people were talking about changing their brake pads to "low dust" ones. Which decreased the dusting tremendously, not completely though. I find this very annoying too and I usually brake with my right foot, while it's still on the throttle(I drive a LHD Auris), which creates way too much dust. I wash the car and after ~150 kilometers, it's gray. After ~400, it's dark gray. After ~800(which is the highest kilometer I can get before the LOW FUEL warnign), it's almost the same color as my car, black. Well, not black but let's call it a gun metal gray, that very dark shade of gray.

It's impossible to keep those pristine, only 100 kilometers is enough to get them covered in thin dust film.

If there is a solution to it, at least one of those low dust brake pads, I'm totally going for it. As long as it does not affect the braking performance negatively.

[DaveSR]

I think it's just the pads are especially bad.

When I changed from Toyota to normal Mintex pads there was no problem with brake dust - and there still isn't!

[Brian B]

I have this problem and last time I had the wheels off for cleaning experimented with Autoglym car polish on the Alloy wheels, I may have just been hoping but they seem to stay cleaner and are easier to keep clean. It may have worked or could just be in my mind.