being in school and harsh michigan weather prevents me to care for the car as i normally would. Now the lips of my wheels have rust and dirt corroded onto it. Does anyone know the most effective way to clean it?, should i just bring it to a body shop or something? I tried using wheels cleaner, but i guess its not strong enough.

try using soapy water using the blue scotch brite pads. That may work, it works good on taking of baked on brake dust.

If the lip is polished and there are littly black dots on them you are likely too late to easily fix it. Sounds like they are pitted which about the only way to fix the problem is to sand them down and repolish them (if they are polished).

Exactly which wheels do you have?

work nezart spoke 2

I believe those are aluminum, so there won't be any rust on them anytime soon :D. Back when I had a car with polished wheels, I always had great luck with this...

http://www.mothers.com/products/productcatalog/productpix/05100-05101.jpg

You may need to put a buffer to it if you've got deep pits in the aluminum.