I had the mobile tire guy out to the house on Saturday to mount and balance 4 tires. I noticed when I brought the wheels back in the garage that they had some streaks of liquid running down from the tires. It was raining/wet outside so I assumed it was either that or something used to lubricate or seal the tires and disregarded it.

Last night I went out to work in the garage and to my horror I saw that the areas where the streaks were had dried to a milky white color and it WILL NOT CLEAN UP. Did something the tire guy used actually etch or stain the wheels? I had been cleaning the wheels before he arrived with Griot's green wheel cleaner. If some wheel cleaner didn't get rinsed off could that have caused this?



Most importantly, what can I do to fix this? I haven't reached out to the tire guy yet. I wanted to hear some opinions here first. Hope you guys can help me.

 

Tire mounting paste/lube will not etch or stain a rim

 

Looks like the rim cleaner wasn't fully washed away, and was able to run down and sit for a while.

 

Considering the second ingredient on the list for your wheel cleaner is an acid, and it looks like you acid etched the wheels, absolutely blame the tire guy. Talk about fly by night. Who mounts tires out of the back of a van parked down by the river?

No seriously, you burned the wheels with the cleaner. Get out the rubbing compound and start polishing, maybe you can abrade away the damaged surface. Maybe...

 

I'm sure the wheels have a clear coat over the aluminum and paint. Try a rubbing compound and a polish like Drew said but it may have damaged the clear coat.

 

Update:

Griots says their green wheel cleaner is non-acidic and there's no way it could have caused the problem.

Tire guy says he only used bead sealer which couldn't have caused the problem.

Yet here I am with etched wheels.

I spent a couple hours polishing one of the wheels with Quik-Glo and got it looking somewhat better. Looks to me like it's not going to be 100% corrected by anything short of a complete wheel refinish.

I'll post a pic later.

 

Yea, my tire shop said it was "safe" also when I picked up my highly polished GTA wheels a few years ago with newly mounted tires on them and they were stained with white and black streaks all over. They said "that will clean right off with soap and water." Okay, I said (wondering why they didn't clean them in the first place) and off I went since it was raining that day and they seemed to be slammed. Tried cleaning it off to no avail when I got home and ended up having to re-polish the outer lips on all 4 wheels.

 

I had the same issue with the tire shop on another car of mine. The wheels were perfect when it went in and they claimed the streaks would clean right off, but they didn't. After I went back to complain, they said they didn't know what I used on them and they couldn't do anything because I didn't get it resolved when I was initially there.