No Longer smells like arse
First and most noticeable change is the smell. Wheely Clean has become quite infamous for its nose singeing smell that for lack of better words, smelt like arse (although I am no expert on this). For years the smell alone has been able to completely polarise people who have used it; some hate it, some like it, and most simply tolerate it as the product cleaned brake dust caked wheels so damn well.
The ingredients used to make the purple chemical reaction with ferrous iron/brake dust have been around since the late 1920’s where it was used as a chemistry test for iron. Versions of it are now used by many car care companies for wheel cleaning and iron decontamination from paint. It’s a complex and time-consuming job to stabilise all the ingredients into a final pH neutral formula we require, and it was part of this balancing process as to why the previous formulas smelt so damn bad. But, we have a new way to do this with pharmaceutical grade, low odour ingredients that are very new to the market. We are the only company using these new ingredients in Australia and consequently they are a bit more expensive, but as our focus is always on the final product quality, we think the slight rise in the product price is well worth it.
The chemists have done an outstanding job at removing the stench - mind you it still doesn’t smell of roses - but it’s night and day compared to the older formulas we had. A big thing to note, is DO NOT smell this by unscrewing the trigger to get a whiff direct from the bottle, as all you get is the head of its fumes and it’s not at all indicative to how it should smell. If you need to know what it smells like, the only real test it is by spraying it, so you smell the actual liquid product all mixed together correctly. Maybe best if you don’t do this inside your local Auto store though…