Dr Downpipe Motorcycle Exhaust Downpipe Cleaner - 500ML Spray Bottle

Product Information

Most people are looking for one product to do all of their motorcycle, but there are some cleaners designed for specific areas, so if you want a wheel cleaner, for instance, you don’t really need to worry about the compatibility with plastic and acrylic. Aluminium safety does matter here though.

The waterless washes are really only intended for light dust and dirt. These can be surprisingly effective at ‘floating’ grime away, but the high scores here were down to the fact that a microfibre cloth had to be dragged across the surface; if the bike’s really gritty you could scratch the finish. Be particularly careful on screens. I didn’t test chrome as it’s a very hard surface that was far less likely to show any damage compared to the materials I already had. Swelling measured on O-rings was generally very slight. A few years ago I tested several chemicals, and the damage caused by petrol and acetone was far greater than anything I saw here. Here are the results of this testing, based on material compatibility and performance. I’ve split them into standard cleaners and waterless washes– while some manufacturers make big claims about waterless washes, they really are only suitable for light cleaning. The chemistry helps lift fine dust and dirt from surfaces, but rub too hard and you could scratch areas like the screen.What IS the same is that every cleaner really needs agitating to get it to work at its best, so to find what I believe to be the best motorcycle cleaner, we need to first look at material safety. Many of the non-motorcycle-specific cleaners caused damage to polycarbonate during my immersion test. While this is an extreme test, it does highlight that while an all-purpose-cleaner might be effective for its market, it might not be 100% safe for use on motorcycle screens, headlights etc. For that reason, use caution. A lot of people worry that washing-up liquid contains salts that will cause your motorcycle to rust, but this isn’t the case. I spoke to Professor Bob Eden PhD– founder and managing director of Rawwater and an Honorary professor at Manchester University, with a master’s degree and doctorate in Corrosive Science and engineering. Armed with the information below, you can decide how much the potential for damage worries you; after all, a strong degreaser or wheel cleaner that damages polycarbonate or acrylic is fine as long as it doesn’t get near the screen or headlights.

Some anions – like chloride – can pit metals, while others – like chromate –protect metals but damage the environment. Others – like ‘anionic surfactants’– will degrease metals. And there’s a crazy world in between. It’s vital to remember that the cleaning performance is, to some extent, rather subjective, so all of the cleaners above offer good performance, but these stood out as being, in my opinion, the Best Buys thanks to their performance and value for money: Well it is pretty simple solution to use, spray it on after covering any other areas up, leave for a minute, and then use a pad to wipe off and repeat until clean and shiny. Well that’s seems pretty straight forward, but for me it was not…. After a couple of goes it did not do that well on my rear sections of my system, the header pipes came up a lot better thou, but not a lot of change in the mid to rear. Now could that be to a reason of age its been dirty, or that I have a coating on it… unsure. If it was a coating the same was done to the wife system and that turned out so much better.

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Special mention goes to the very good cleaning performance of Ammo Magnum Power Cleaner, which has a fairly neutral PH of 6, but had more noticeable marring of the bare steel plate than these others. The same applies to M16 Extreme Bike Clean, which was a great cleaner, but just marked the bare steel that little more. Not all motorcycle cleaners are the same – while they might have similar ingredients, it’s important to know their limitations on certain surfaces, and to follow the instructions.Another option is this Rust Remover from Pro-GreenMX. I will be reviewing it fully as soon as I can, but it’s claimed to include corrosion inhibitors. The issue regarding corrosion is the ‘chloride’ bit of the salt. In ‘chloride nests’ at the base of a corrosion pit, the chloride exists as hydrogen chloride, which in damp conditions creates a solution of dilute hydrochloric acid, and it’s this acid that does the damage.

Again both mine and the wife can and pipes both had a good going over with this stuff, left it on for the minute it says and clean with a pad and repeat, but after 20 mins of rubbing and cleaning it really only worked better on the Mrs system which was a shame as mine needed a good tidy look too.

I left anything out that showed significant damage under my immersion test method to steel, aluminium, painted steel, anodised aluminium, ABS, polycarbonate, acrylic or rubber, then selected all those remaining with a score of 8/10 or above for cleaning performance. These are what I would recommend for use on motorcycles… of Comma lith-moly grease (bought from Halfords with my 10% discount through Bennetts Rewards), thinned down with 200ml of white spirit and mixed with 1kg of fine sand There’s nothing in a washing-up liquid that will exacerbate corrosion – there’s no sodium chloride salt to worry about.