Seeking opinions: Upkeep of black wheels?
 

I am in the processing of ordering a new C63s, and debating whether to pick up the matte black wheels (767 option code) or just stick with the stock silver twin 5-spoke. I've never had a car with black wheels, and since black wheels seemsso common among AMG owners I thought I'd ask for your opinions on how often upkeep is required to keep them from not looking like sad brown wheels. I've also never felt the need to do any ceramic coating to maintain rims so this is all new to me.

This C63s will be my daily driver, and while I am not lazy on cleaning my cars I am also concerned I won't have a ton of time to dedicate to this task every week. For reference, I currently drive a 340i which looks pretty much exactly like this: https://f30.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh...daptive+cruise, and I don't find those wheels particularly hard to clean. If the matte black wheels are like that in terms of maintenance, then I will probably pick them up.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Look at it like this. If black painted cars are hard to keep clean so are black painted wheels. I have on 2 AMG's and they are more effort to keep clean. I love the look and don't regret getting them but MBZ brake dust is insane. I have tried a lot of wheel cleaners from Griots Heavy Duty to professional Mequiars Wheel Brightener (both acidic) and I still have to do manually cleaning on every spoke. I haven't found any spray on wash off wheel cleaner that performs as stated.

All AMG wheels will get dirty really quickly. It comes from the brake pads they use. A few hard stops and your wheel will get coated in a nice bronze layer of material no matter the color.

If you like the look of black wheels more, get them. If cleanliness really ends up being too much, swap your OEM pads for Porterfield RS-4 like many people on this forum.

I put ceramic paint coating on my black wheels (just the cheap Amazon Mr. Fix9H stuff) and it makes them relatively easy to clean. I use a soft spit-end fine-bristle brush that has a plastic handle (to avoid scratching any car surfaces) and wash using Palmolive dish soap and water (I've used this for about 35 years on cars).

Applying the ceramic coating to the wheels is a bit of a pain because of all the corners and crevices ... and coating the crevices is very important because that's where the brake-dust tends to accumulate. My C43's wheels are "plasti-coated" (with what appears to be the Dupont product) and I also applied ceramic coating over the plasti-coat and they now come clean more easily (though the plasti-coat alone seemed to help, over just raw paint).

Just spent my first week driving my car and my matte black wheels have indeed become brown. Like others have said, that's just the nature of the brake pads. My red calipers look absolutely filthy. I think it might look even dirtier if I had regular silver wheels since it's less obvious on matte black.

I have a Feynlab coating on my rims that supposedly make them easier to clean. Will report back on this once it stops raining.

I have the matte black wheels ... yes, brown brake dust collects and yes the MB pads do seem to throw a lot more dust than I've ever seen. But, I think the matte/satin finish of the wheels actually helps mask some of that. I have the graphite gray magno paint and though a very dark black it actually does quite well masking dirt, certainly better than typically gloss black. I'd say the same for these wheels.

I ceramic coated mine, not because of brake dust per se, but because they are painted wheels and wanted to protect them from acids, salts, etc. I use Dr. Beasley's matte wheel cleaner and the combo of it and the ceramic coating makes cleaning the wheels pretty easy. The "pain" has more to do with the fact that there are so many spokes, not because it's hard to get the brake dust off.

Yeah, you're going to get a lot of brake dust - there's no way around it.

As some mentioned, ceramic coating will help. It will help a little with the accumulation as all have inherent anti static / stick properties, but really the biggest advantage at least in terms of brake dust is going to be ease of cleaning. Beyond that you will get protection from salt, corrosion, tar, acids etc etc.

For wheels, you definitely do not need professional application. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Application is simple just trickier with the spokes.

Any solid DIY kit will do but I wouldn't go with MrFix. 1. You'll probably have to wait weeks to receive it. 2. As it's a generic, the quality is going to vary massively. It's just a crapshoot.

Regardless of silver or black wheels, frequency and cleaning methods should remain the same. Would definitely look into ceramic coating annually for easier removal of brake dust.

For me the choice between silver or black wheels ties into the character of the C63-S. Silver wheels give more of a high end classy look, adding to the shine and luxury of the AMG.

Where matte black wheels has more of a menacing premium black edition AMG design and flows distinctively with the gloss black and carbon fibre accents.

+1

New pads + rotors low dust
problem solved

EZ clean

Had the original silver 5-spokes but within a week they were an ugly brown. So I powdercoated them black and would never go back. They still turn a shade of bronze after a while but there's no comparison to before.

user22, CrashTX, and Xec, since you ceramic coated your wheels, has there been a "worth it" difference? I.e. - with the amount of pre-work I would have to do to the wheels (remove them, thoroughly wash, claybar, buff, alcohol prep, etc.) in order to apply the ceramic coating, I'm wondering if I'm better off buying the ceramic "low dust" pads to which I can attest 100% satisfaction. I installed the Akebono ceramic pads on my wife's S5 and 10k miles later (no joke), they are still clean enough that I don't feel compelled to wash them. A little disclaimer, she does drive mostly highway miles. But still, when compared to the Audi OEM pads, I'd have to wash them almost at 1000 miles. I just hate to "throw away" perfectly good, albeit dirty, AMG brake pads at only 14k miles.

PLEASE RESPOND! And thanks in advance!!!