How long do you keep your rims/wheels?

[mustanghammer]

One more reason, beyond all of the excellent ones that have already been given, is that "brake dust" has a lot of cast iron dust in it from the rotors. If you add water to this you'll have rust that is really hard to get off. This happened to my rain wheels and ever since then I clean my wheels after every track session. Just takes a second with a little Simple Green and some paper towels.

[jimbbski]

One more reason, beyond all of the excellent ones that have already been given, is that "brake dust" has a lot of cast iron dust in it from the rotors. If you add water to this you'll have rust that is really hard to get off. This happened to my rain wheels and ever since then I clean my wheels after every track session. Just takes a second with a little Simple Green and some paper towels.

I have done this as well. On my first race car I had white wheels and they looked like crap when dirty so after each race they got washed. Same with my 95 R wheels on my 93 Mustang. You can see if anything is wrong. I found problems earlier then I would have when I noticed something on one wheel not on the others. Clean wheels are also nicer to remove/install and to carry around when loading/unloading. And when it comes time to dismount/mount tires or balance them the tire tech will appreciate it as well.

[Matt93SE]

A bit late, but I'll share my $0.02 anyway...

I use takeoff tires, so I usually wind up going through 2-3 sets in a season. Every time I take the wheels to the shop to get tires mounted, I clean them up and check them over on the outside. Once the first set of tires are dismounted, I inspect the inside of the wheel while the tire guy is working on the next one. it takes the tire guy just a bit longer to run through the set since they have to mount/dismount each wheel an additional time, but if you're nice end explain what you're doing, they're always willing to help out.

Checking the inside of the wheels like that actually saved my butt last year. I had a 5Zigen wheel that cracked on the inside edge of the rim, but it wasn't visible during my regular driveway inspection due to the thick powdercoat on the shiny side of the wheel. I could only see it on the inside part while the tire was off.

FYI, those wheels were ~5 years old and haven't seen any major excitement, but they have spent a little bit of time sliding through the grass at the local tracks. Nothing out of the ordinary for wear and tear.