In a message dated 11/19/99 6:32:05 PM Eastern Standard Time,
john.mates@INTEL.COM writes:

<<  Now I want to wash them as efficiently and quickly and
  with as little work as possible and without damaging
  them beyond what nicks and scrapes they already show.

  Shall I use a high pressure washer?  Simple Green and
  elbow grease?  A special wheel washing mix?  What?

  The insides of the wheels (facing in toward the center
  line of the van) are the sides in need of the serious
  cleaning, of course.
  >>

i use soft scrub cleanser and a little red pot scrubbing pad (not the green
super abrasive ones).   wet the wheel and pad thoroughly and scrub only the
black areas.  i only use this method for cleaning alloy wheels that are
absolutely BLACK with years of stuck on brake dust that wont come off with
regular detergents. this works great, tho once you do this, you must wax your
wheels to bring the shine back  up.

ps, if you frequently wash/wax your wheels, they will never get that bad in
the first place.

chris