Brake parts cleaner vs soap and water…

[Jesus Garcia]

I just heard that using brake parts cleaner to clean new rotors can cause the rotors to squeak and that a soapy water solution is a better choice. Has anyone heard of this? I’ve always used bpc and never had noise from the rotors.

Topic

[Cameron]

Brake cleaner is an excellent solvent for removing the protective finish on new brake rotors. I have never had any issues using it and using that fluid does not cause your brakes to squeal which, in any event, is usually a brake pad and/or pad installation issue if it occurs. Wiping down the rotors after that with a wet cloth(no soap) and drying is obviously not going to do any harm if you are concerned about any residual brake cleaner film remaining after initially wiping off the brake cleaner.

[Gary]

Its weird how some people are so particular when it comes to pads and rotor cleaning.
Those things are designed to take a beating. Think about it, constantly getting sprayed by road dirt, dirty water pooling in the road, soapy water from the car wash or when you power wash your wheels.
What you want is to minimise grease and oil contamination to give you the best possible braking performance. So my process is clean rotors with a solvent like brake clean. Grease metal contact areas with the proper grease, just enough to get by no need to layer it on or it could end up contaminating the friction material and make sure the shims, clips and springy things are installed 100%. That is more likely to cause squeal than solvent residue on a rotor. Brake clean is designed to flash off pretty quickly and leave little to no residue. Crap quality pads are almost always the culprit when I see a car with brake squeal closely followed by botched/bad installation.

[James P Grosso]

I usually use brake parts cleaner or plain old acetone (less expensive) to clean the rotors.

[Mike]

Brake cleaner is an excellent solvent, evaporates quickly, and leaves no residue behind. Soap, on the other hand, is oily, and can take a surprising amount of rinsing and effort to remove entirely.

Soaps and detergents are excellent degreasers too, but I would would use them for preliminary cleaning only, followed by brake cleaner for the “bare metal” results.

All in all, it’s better to use the soap for cleaning your hands.

[Bubba]

And visa versa, keep the brake cleaner to cleaning parts. Don’t use that crap to clean your hands.

[Author]

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