I clean my wheels about once a week in an ongoing battle against the infamous brake dust from the factory brake pads. Unfortunately, in the six months I have had the car I've had the BMW roundel centercap decals peel badly on three of four wheels. I supsect the wheel cleaner and scrubbing led to their demise.

I'm using Meguiar's wheel cleaner and brush. The wheels in question are the factory "M double-spoke II" or Type 39 wheels, as shown in my sig image.

Fortunately, new caps are relatively inexpensive at about $5 each, and I've just replaced the three bad ones. The thing I'm worried about now is that these new ones will be toast in a few months if I keep up the same wheel cleaning routine.

Has anyone else had this problem? And if so, did switching wheel cleaner brands help? Any other suggestions?

I'll plan to change from the factory brake pads to Axxis Ultimates sometime in the next few months, which are said to dust less, but they'll still dust and I expect that I'll still be using wheel cleaner.

- Dave

I haven't had any issues since getting the car (one of the things was flaking when I got it).

I use just soap/water or Eagle One A2Z only if it's a light dusting. Yes my car usually gets washed once a week.

What wheel cleaner are you using?

Originally posted by hal9000
What wheel cleaner are you using?

Meguiar's Gold Class instant wheel cleaner. Before this, I was using Meguiar's "hot rims/cool care" cleaner.

I'm pretty certain that one decal was peeling on one side when I got the car and that the others were not. It could be that they were just past their prime and the California sun did them in, I don't know. At this point, I won't worry about it unless the replacement center caps have their decals coming off in a few months too, unless someone chimes in here with info to the contrary...

Yeah, I think they were just probably at the end of their lifespan. I haven't had any problems with mine, even with Eagle 1 A2Z...

FWIW, Axxis Ultimates dust just as much as the factory pads. But I really am pretty impressed with their stopping power. I'm still upgrading to 11.5" rotors and larger calipers, though...

Originally posted by Ben Carufel
FWIW, Axxis Ultimates dust just as much as the factory pads.

Really? I had read that they dusted more than some pads (Hawk HPS for example) but much less than stock. Searching older threads I found three different people who all estimated the dust from the Ultimates to be about half that of the factory pads, and several others who said it was less to some degree or another. :dunno