If you're not sure what type of wheel you own, if you own several cars with different kinds of wheels, or if you own wheels that consist of a variety of materials, you will want to invest in a universal wheel cleaner. Universal wheel cleaners are safe for use on any kind of wheel, but the cleaning agent is not as effective as a wheel-specific cleaner. A cleaning agent that is specifically formulated to clean a polished aluminum wheel will be more effective than a general wheel cleaner, but the damage you can cause to a wheel not designed for use with the wheel-specific cleaner may be irreversible.
If you don't clean your wheels on a regular basis, brake dust and other road contaminants can permanently stain you wheels. If you clean your wheels correctly and often, however, you will enjoy many years with perfect, shiny wheels. Before you decide to clean your wheels, however, remember the basic and most important rules of wheel cleaning: never clean hot wheels, use a cleaning agent that is safe for your specific type of wheel, clean from the bottom to the top, and the most important rule of all-read the directions on the bottle.
Source: Mothers, 714/891-3364, www.mothers.com
Understanding Plus SizingIn case you're new to the whole modifying scene, we're about to pass on a secret that will be invaluable not only to the performance of your car, but also the looks: Buy larger diameter wheels than what came on your car. If you presently have a Mk 4 Golf with the stock 15-inch wheels, you can easily step up to 16-, 17-, 18-, or even 19-inch wheels. Changing to larger diameter wheels will leave you wondering what size tire to get, but fortunately, there are professionals who can work out what size tires you need as fast as they can sell them to you. BFGoodrich is one of those professionals that is insanely helpful when it comes to working out problems, so we called up for a brief explanation as to what "plus sizing" is and why it's a skill any aftermarket groupie should have.
The concept behind plus sizing was to create a simple way to mathematically work out the change in tire size based on the increase in wheel diameter. If you step up the wheel size from a 15-inch wheel to a 16-inch wheel, that would be called "plus one." Along the same lines, using a 17-inch wheel would be "plus two," 18-inch would be "plus three," and so on. We don't know if there is such a thing as "minus sizing," and frankly we don't care.
Before we get to the next step, we're going to have to quickly explain tire sizing. If you look at the side of a 15-inch Golf tire, it will read 195/65-15-This was the standard Golf GL tire size for 2001. The "195" is the width of the contact patch (section width) in millimeters, the "65" is the aspect ratio (i.e., sidewall width) measured as a percentage of the section width, and the "15" represents the wheel diameter in inches.
Continuing with the same example of the Golf with 15-inch wheels, if you decide to step up to 16-inch wheels, which is plus one, you will need to adjust the tire sizing to match. The goal of plus sizing is to keep the overall wheel/tire diameter as close to stock as possible to solve a number of potential problems-the most obvious of which is incorrect speedometer readings. During plus sizing, for every inch the wheel diameter increases the section width must increase and the aspect ratio must decrease accordingly. The stock 195/65-15 tire has an overall diameter of about 32.66-inches. Thus, a plus one tire for the Golf would be a 205/55-16 with a 32.95-inch diameter, a plus two size would be 215/45-17 at 33.06-inches, and a plus three would be 225/35-18 at 32.04-inches.