[CLABRO]

For wheels specifically, I've found that my hands work far better than any tool or combination of tools to clean wheels. Reason for this is because the wrist is an ellipsoid synovial joint (basically allowing movement along two axis). Your wrist can move just about anyway you want it to- flexion, extension, abduction, or adduction.

It might be more physical work as you have to turn, twist, maneuver your hand/fingers into the crevices, but it allows for a more thorough clean compared to a brush or tool that you just scrub or rub back and forth. Usually I'll just use warm water and car wash soap from Chemical Guys and clean the wheels by hand.

Your last question about the pressure washer is a good question. I've actually been looking at some as of late and was wondering similar things (would a certain PSI pressure washer be strong enough to clean the car without soap for example). My answer to your question wold be yes, 1900PSI is enough to clean the wheels without agitation. However, the GPM (gallons per minute) is the other number you need to look at to determine that.

A pressure washer would sure make it easier to clean the car and the wheels!


This explains PSI and GPM well to help you if you decide to get a pressure washer. It was a reply to a question someone made regarding a pressure washer on Amazon. This was the question- What is stronger- 2,000 PSI or 3,000 PSI?

"3000 PSI is stronger than 2000 PSI. However, the pressure is not the only factor that affects cleaning power. The amount of water makes a great difference in the amount of cleaning a pressure washer can accomplish. One way to account for both of these factors is to multiply them together. A pressure washer with 3000 PSI and 1 gallon per minute (GPM) of water flow will have about as much cleaning power as a 2000 PSI washer with 1.5 GPM would, and a 2000 PSI unit with 2 GPM would be able to clean quicker. The difference the pressure (PSI) makes is the strength with which the water jet can knock debris loose. The difference the flow (GPM) makes is how much work that stream can do.
An exaggeration might help illustrate this. Imagine a 5000 PSI pressure washer that had only 0.1 GPM of flow. It could remove amazingly stubborn dirt, but the jet stream is so narrow it's like a laser and can only clean the smallest area at any single time. It could clean absolutely anything off of a plate, no matter how stuck on it is, however it would take three hours of work to clean the entire plate, even if it wasn't very dirty at all, because no matter how much you aim the stream around, it's cleaning only the tiniest hair-thin line of debris from the plate's surface, requiring a LOT of sweeping back and forth.
A garden hose with no attachment might be the opposite extreme (or pouring a cup of water), so that the entire plate's surface would be covered with water in less than a second of two, but the pressure is not enough to actually loosen and remove any debris except the loosest.
A medium between those two extremes might be a 1000 PSI pressure washer with 1.5 GPM of flow. That might be powerful enough to clean everything except for the most stubborn things from the plate, and could do it in 10 seconds of time.
2000 PSI at the same flow of 1.5 GPM would take the same amount of time to cover the entire plate with the same width (angle of jet spread) nozzle (for example 20 degrees), but would be able to clean debris that's twice as stuck. (Alternatively, you could spread the beam twice as wide and it would be the same as two 1000 PSI jets side by side, but each with half the flow, totaling 0.75 GPM each.)
The pressure is about how much strength the jet has to knock debris loose. Double the pressure means double the strength with which to remove something.
The flow is about how much work you can get done for any given time. Double the flow means double the speed you can clean things."