On the reccomendation of a few people here I set out to clean my engine on Sun.
I purchased a bottle of Simple Green and before doing the motor I tried it on the wheels.
It didn't make a dent in the break dust and grim that collects on my wheels every few days.
My 1st thought was that it would do no better on the engine. WRONG, I sprayed it on, waited a few minutes then hosed it off. WOW! the entire engine looks great!
Simple Green; sucks on wheels, GREAT on engines!

Jeff
971.8q

It's not cheap, but works great and doesn't damage them. Thanks for the post about the Simple Green, I'll be trying that this weekend.

Regards,
Rodney

'99 A4 1.8tqms

I wash my car about once a week and clean the wheels at the same time. I was using a wheel cleaner but ran out so tried Simple Green and it worked well. One reason could be that I usually use Zymol wheel treatment after washing the wheels.

As for the engine, once it's clean it's a good idea to spray WD40 on the whole engine. WD40 is mostly kerosene which leaves a waxy film behind when it dries. This will prevent corrosion in the engine bay especially on aluminum. I clean the engine with Simple Green and coat with WD40 about twice a year.

I used Simple Green on the engine of my 4kq for quite a while, thinking that it was a pretty good solution (no pun intended). One time, I was out, so I just used a clean garage rag and my normal car washing detergent, Meguire's Hi-Tech wash. It seemed to clean just as well. Then I noticed that the engine and underside of the hood stayed cleaner between washings, and what was there was easier to clean. Also, I had some misgivings about the long-term effects of the Simple Green on various hoses, lines, gaskets etc. I *think* that the Meguire's detergent is milder. So I switched over to using the Meguire's for everything, and am currently satisfied.

$.02...

>>>>>Bernie

It does fairly well. Some of the "baked" on stuff needs some extra scrubbing.