One of the most powerful cleaning tools in your garage should be a good steam cleaner. Not only is it great for cleaning interior surfaces like carpets, leather, vinyl, and fabrics it can also be useful for exterior cleaning. I use it on deep contamination of fragile paint; cleaning under the hood and cleaning in wheel wells.
Here I’m using a combination of a degreaser and steam. The first photo shows the wheel well of a Porsche 964 after it has been foamed and power washed. (You can see the arc that the power washer was able to reach.) This is an area that is often overlooked when detailing older cars. We have gotten used to modern cars with their dark plastic wheel liners that we don’t even notice how dirty this is when the car is sitting on all four wheels.
That’s where the steamer came in handy. Using the smallest tip, apply in a continuous motion, working a small area at a time. Be sure to have plenty of old towels on hand to catch the drippy mess that will fall off.
