The Best Aluminum Rim Polish On The Market in 2021
If you are anything like me, you have a habit of buying old cars. Lots more old cars than you should, or even know what to do with! We seem to have this innate ability to see the heaping piles of junk for what they could be instead of what they are. The neighbors don’t understand it, but we’re not gonna stop working on them until everyone sees what we saw all those years ago when we bought the car (And honestly, we won’t stop working on them then either). One of the quickest and easiest ways to improve at least the look of those cars is to shine up those wheels with some aluminum rim polish. Old aluminum rims become clouded and matte, losing the shine that make them such an attractive option. There’s dozens of products out there that claim to be the best polish around for cleaning up old aluminum rims, but one dull Monday morning sitting at home, I determined I would find the best polish product for aluminum rims on the market in 2021. After conducting significant research I compiled a list of 4 metal polishes (Cause I’ve only got 4 wheels) that would be going head to head in the ultimate showdown! There can be only 1 victor.
The 4 metal polishes I selected are all aluminum polishes that can be used for materials other than aluminum, and are some of the most well known polishes out there:
- Sheen Genie
- White Diamond
- Mothers
- Eagle One Nevr Dull
We tested these polishes on 4 fronts
- Ease and speed of the polish
- Effectiveness on heavy corrosion
- Durability of the polish
- And of course, best overall shine
The experiment was conducted on a rusty old Subaru GL with over 320,000 miles, and 4 aluminum rims that likely hadn’t ever seen polish before in their lives.Sheen Genie would claim the front passenger side wheel, White Diamond the drivers side front wheel, Mothers the rear drivers side wheel, and Eagle One the rear passenger side wheel. In order to keep things even, pictures of each wheel were taken after an initial cleaning to remove the mud left behind from last weekend’s trip into the mountains, And just like that, the race was off!
Ease and Speed Of Polish Winners
In order to test the ease and speed of the polish, we taped off half of each wheel, and applied 3 rounds of polish. The faster the shine emerged, and the less time I had to spend scrubbing, the higher the polish was ranked. We ranked the 4 competing polishes in the ease and speed of polish category as follows:
- Sheen Genie
- White Diamond
- Mothers
- Eagle One
Sheen Genie
Sheen genie took the lead out of the gate with the speed it was able to bring about a polish, as well as the amount of effort it took to achieve it. With Sheen genie, you simply wipe the poligh on, cover the wheel with it, let it dry, and then wipe it off after a minute or two. The process was insanely easy and fast when compared to the amount of scrubbing all the other polishes took! I spent a fraction of the time polishing the Sheen Genie wheel when compared to any of its competitors.
White Diamond
The battle for second place on the speed of the polish was a close race. White Diamond barely slipped ahead because of its results out the gate. White Diamond of all the polishes took the most scrubbing to get any polish at all, but as a result, it produced an extremely high quality polish right out the gate. Being the most abrasive, it was able to cut through the existing light corrosion, leaving a crisp clear shine on the first pass, which helped it barely eke out ahead of The mothers polish despite the extra work required.
Mothers
The Mothers mag and aluminum polish was a strange polish, one unlike anything I’d used before. It started out as a light airy paste, but after sitting in the sun for a few minutes, it melted down into a watery pudding-like substance. I found it worked best after having melted if you shook it really well to keep the polish somewhat uniform. The polish didn’t appear to be abrasive at all, but the more you scrubbed, the blacker the polish got, and the shinier the wheel got. It took less effort than White Diamond, Or Eagle One giving Mothers some serious bonus points, but it’s shine after the first application wasn’t as clear as Sheen Genie, or White Diamond.
Eagle One
Unfortunately for Eagle One, it took last place in this competition, and many of the others. I’ve heard really good things about Eagle One from many people, but I certainly wasn’t impressed. I do have to keep in mind, that I’m really running these polishes through the ringer here, and that it likely would do good work on a wheel that hasn’t been seriously neglected like mine, but as it was, After much scrubbing, and several wads of wet cotton later, I found there to be little to no difference between the two halves of the wheel. Feeling a bit put out, and with a seriously throbbing arm, I determined to move on regardless of the lack of result.
Effectiveness On Heavy Corrosion
The large black spots all over the old rims are areas of heavy corrosion and pitting. I intended to see which of all the polishes was the best at removing heavy corrosion, but to be honest, they were all terrible at removing the heavy corrosion… I’ve ranked each of the following polishes from best to worst, but I do believe I’m going to have to try this test again with heavy corrosion specific polishes! Each of these polishes was intended more for a final shine, and they do that quite well! Regardless, here’s how out competitors stacked up:
- White Diamond
- Mothers
- Sheen Genie
- Eagle One
White Diamond
Of all the competitors, White Diamond was the grittiest polish. This allowed it to get down into the pits and clear them of corrosion quite well, but the thick layers of blackened corrosion were still too much for it. It took a lot of effort, but some progress was slowly made. As a result, it takes first, but just because nothing else could really touch the heavy corrosion.
Mothers
I don’t know how, but mothers did also work to clean out some of the heavy pitting on the wheel. Without any abrasives in the polish, Mothers couldn’t compete with the results White Diamond showed, but it did outperform either of the other two competitors. Another strike against Mothers Performance was that it couldn’t do a thing to the blackened sections of heavy corrosion either.
Sheen Genie
Sheen Genie is a completely different formula from all of it’s competitors, one that completely lacks all forms of abrasives of any kind.It orks by eating through the light layer of corrosion, and leaving behind a protective layer, as a result, it really did nothing to the pitting or heavy corrosion, besides attempt to fill them with it’s protective residue. Certainly not the polish for heavy corrosion.
Eagle One
I really feel bad putting Eagle one at the bottom so consistently, but once again, it’s taken last place. Eagle one did absolutely nothing to the heavy corrosion and pitting sections, besides make them a little wet, and leave behind bits of fluff on the rough surface. Heavy corrosion is not Eagle One’s strong point.
Durability Of The Polish
To test the durability of the polish, the wheels were left outside for weeks, exposed to dirt, wind, rain, and more. I checked on the rims daily, and took photo documentation of how each wheel held it’s shine. Here’s how the competitors stacked up:
- Mothers
- Sheen Genie
- White Diamond
- Eagle One
Mothers
Mothers outshined the rest of the competition, not because of a lack of fogginess, that remained on the wheel the entire time, but it’s shine appeared to regress the least over the course of the few weeks it was left outside. Mothers may not have been the easiest to apply, or the quickest to reach a shine, but it seems to certainly provide a lasting shine.
Sheen Genie
Over the next few weeks the shine on the Sheen Genie wheel stayed just as bright as after we first polished it. Despite the rain, dirt, and continuous exposure to the elements. I have to say, I was really quite impressed at the clarity of the shine as you can see in the image below, while it’s definition certainly faded over time, the reflective surface remained vastly clearer than its competitors. I had to knock it down to second due to the slight regression in clarity.
White Diamond
White diamond was a leader when it came to handling the heavier corrosion, but it struggled greatly to keep up that beautiful shine. Just a few weeks later, and the wheel is looking like it needs a good polish again. I’d still say it’s a good mid tier polish, but would work best partnered with a finishing polish that coats the bare metal with a protective surface like Sheen Genie, or even a simple wax if the white diamond shine is good enough for you..
Eagle One
Once again, I’m being mean to Eagle One and placing it last of the bunch. While I suppose I could have ranked it higher on the durability ranking due to a lack of change over the 2 weeks it was out, it also wouldn’t be fair to do so on account of the lack of change after polishing it as well. Therefore, I can’t really give an accurate rating on the durability of the Eagle One Polish. I haven’t yet successfully polished anything with it.
Best Overall Shine
The other tests are all important, but they pale in comparison to the best overall shine award. This is the reason why we buy metal polish of course. To achieve that clean, crisp, mirror-like shine. That’s how you impress your friends, neighbors, and judges at the car show! And it’s what makes me happiest. With the pitting, and heavy corrosion still prevalent, I had no choice but to base it on the clarity of the reflection in those sections without pitting and corrosion remaining, and here’s how the polishes lined up:
- Sheen Genie
- Mothers
- White Diamond
- Eagle One
Sheen Genie
As you can see from the final comparison pictures, Sheen Genie had the cleanest, crispest shine, Nasty pitting aside. I was incredibly impressed with the clarity of shine this polish produces, as well as the speed and ease with which it appeared. On rims without heavy corrosion, pitting, and leftover clear coat from 30+ years ago, this would be my polish of choice for sure.
Mothers
Mothers snuck out ahead of White Diamond on account of the clarity of its final shine. While white diamond had the most even finish thanks to its ability to clean out the pitting, Mothers had a much clearer finish. While the reflection wasn’t as clear as Sheen Genie, and it took more effort to achieve it, the shine was nothing to be disappointed with. Especially when you consider where each of these wheels started from, and each was limited to 3 applications.
White Diamond
White Diamond polish finished in third for the final shine on account of it being more abrasive than any of its competitors, it couldn’t remove that final cloudiness left behind as well as Mothers or Sheen Genie. White Diamond has proven to be an excellent mid tier corrosion polish, but just isn’t quite at the top end for finish work, or for heavy corrosion removal. I would not hesitate to recommend it as a solid all around polish. Besides, it gets some bonus points for being the best smelling polish by far!
Eagle One
Eagle One, unfortunately comes in last once again. I was unimpressed with the lack of result even after 3 applications of the polish. It may be a decent finish polish, but it couldn’t do much of anything even when put up against the slightly corroded sections of the wheel. As you can tell, you can barely see a difference from one end of the wheel to the other. Not at all even close to the performance that I got from any of the other polishes.
Clearly, there’s a lot of work to do, the corrosion and pitting on these wheels is still quite bad. As a result, I think we’re going to have to perform a heavy corrosion polish test. Check back with us for the results of our heavy corrosion test!
Original Story Posted on howtoeverything.org
