How to polish billet aluminum wheels.

Nothing looks as good as a mirror-polished billet wheel. The problem is keeping them looking mirror-polished.

I have tried many ways to polish my CCW wheels, and on this page I will show you what I have found to be the best way to polish a billet wheel.

Make sure your wheels are not clear-coated - if you use metal polish on a clear coated wheel you will damage the surface of the clear coat.
Tools Required:

Aluminum polish - I prefer Adams Metal Polish #1 and #2. Mothers billet polish also works well.
Several micro-fiber cloths (I use the Sam's club packs for this job)
Oops substance remover. This is for old stick on weight goo and tar globs etc.
Bucket of warm soapy water
Towels for washing the wheels prior to polishing.
Nitrile rubber gloves (optional but recommended).
large sheet of cardboard (optional - for doing the job indoors)

I remove the wheels from the car so that I can bring each wheel into my family room. The job is time consuming and I like to watch hockey or basketball etc while polishing, so I remove the wheels and put a large piece of cardboard down in the family room and get comfortable in front of the television.

Use the bucket of warm soapy water and clean the wheels up to remove all of the loose soil and brake dust. You want to minimize the amount of crud that will build up during polishing. Just the oxidation on the wheels will make everything black as it is, so a good wash will help reduce the mess. Here is a picture of one of my badly neglected CCW 505A wheels after washing and ready to be hand polished. Wheel ready to be polished.

Yea - these wheels have been needing polished for a looooong time.....if you do the job more regularly, it is not as bad. Yea - it's been a while...

That brown crud is brake dust that collected after a car wash, and it does not come off with a soap-and-rag wash. That brown goo is brake dust soup.

The micro-fiber towel, and the #1 polish. Cloth and polish ready to go.

The Adams #1, #2 and the Oops. The two polishes, the Oops.

Expect to see lots of the black residue when you polish - my rags are completly black when done polishing even one wheel. This is what you will see when you start polishing.

This is what you will see when you start polishing.

Here is the result after about three hours of working on the wheel. Well worth the effort. Once again, if you do not let the wheels get as bad as I did, the job will be much easier. Almost finished - some waxand it'll be back on the car.

Almost finished - some waxand it'll be back on the car.

Before you wax, and in between the #1 and #2 polishes, clean the residue from the polish from the wheels.

The keys to getting a good result are:

Get comfortable.
Use good polish.
Clean the wheel before polishing.
Do the job often to reduce the effort required.

I hope this helps someone get their wheels looking good again - it can be done!