Originally Posted By: terminaldegree
Hi everyone,
I wanted to know your opinion about which to use to clean things on the underside of the car after an oil change. In past years I've been using nonchlorinated brake cleaner without issue, but have used the others as well.
Which product is best? Safest for metal/rubber/plastic under the car? Safest for me?
Thanks for your input.
CHLORINATED brake cleaner (like CRC in the red can) is by far the safest for plastic, rubber, and metal. It is pure dry-cleaning fluid- tetrachloroethylene, aka "perc" (perchloroethylene). Its bad if you breathe it, but used with adequate ventilation its actually far, FAR safer than the non-chlorinated kind! Non-chlorinated brake cleaners almost always contain Methyl Ethyl Ketone (MEK) which is an extremely potent chemical that damages nerve cells. They also contain varying amounts of other toxins like toluene and other aromatic nasties.
Carb cleaners fall in between, and are usually pretty rough on plastics and have a lot of aromatics that aren't good for you either, but at least most of them don't have MEK. They do have the soup of aromatic toxins though.
As a side note, I personally do *not* understand the existence of "non-chlorinated" brake cleaner. The chemical soup they use in place of tetrachloroethylene is far worse for both humans AND the environment. But hey, it doesn't have chlorine!! It must be "green" (sheesh).