Tire Browning and Alkaline Tire Cleaners

[Setec Astronomy]

Thought I would update this today. Responses went a little off track since I was really questioning whether the tire cleaners like EO AWATC or Hi-Temp are detrimental to the tire, while the responses were mostly "silicone vs. water-based dressings".

I believe I washed the car once since I first posted this and gave the tires my usual scrub with double strength Big Lots Turtle Wax Orange car wash (thanks, Spilchy ), although I might have used Griot's or P21S wheel cleaner, as I have been meaning to try that on the tires. The browning was still there, and I dressed over it with the Long Haul dressing, which made them look ok, but it rained shortly after and driving in it created a bunch of milky brown streaking on the tire after it dried.

So today, the front tires still looking pretty good, I decided to scrub the back tires and try to get them back to black. The previously mentioned TW didn't do much, perhaps a slight improvement. So...I decided to use (OMG!) Dawn. Scrubbed them up and got some brownish foam (although that might have just been dressing coming out of my brush). Let them dry a bit and they were improved, but not quite black yet. So I decided to use some of the Lemon Simple Green that I have (this is not the normal SG, but in a clear bottle and is transparent yellow in color). I sprayed a bit on the brush and scrubbed.

After drying the tires looked pretty darn good. I dressed them with the Long Haul and they look excellent, we'll see how they weather now. For the time being, I'm not going to be using tire cleaners that cause that brown foam, even though I just noticed my AWATC bottle says right on the front "Removes road grime and break (sic) dust".

[JuneBug]

I quit using EO all wheel and tire cleaner and switched to a simple green type product - no browning issues. But, if you wash your car at least every 2 weeks, you should be able to clean the tires and wheels with the car wash solution.

[Accumulator]

.. But, if you wash your car at least every 2 weeks, you should be able to clean the tires and wheels with the car wash solution.

I've tried that with the same stronger-than-normal mix of Griot's Car Wash and it didn't work as well as I'd hoped. I do better with diluted Griot's Wheel Cleaner and/or diluted Griot's Rubber Cleaner. It's sorta tricky to find something strong enough to get 'em clean but not so strong that it completely strips the Z16 I normally treat the tires with.

Oddly enough, the crappy Goodyear Wrangler A/Ts on the Blazer are looking great with no dressing and at-every-wash cleanings with diluted Griot's Rubber Cleaner. Nice and black, no browning. Wish I could get the "good" tires on the "good" vehicles to stay nice that easily!

[BigHonu]

I quit using EO all wheel and tire cleaner and switched to a simple green type product - no browning issues...

Similar experience here. With EO, tons of brown lather after application. Post rinse, the tire (Michelin and Bridgestone) would look dry with a chalky brownish tinge. Even after applying PB BnB, the brownish tinge would remain.

Went back to using a mixture of Simple Green in some ONR (car wash dilution) and I have no browning issues. With BnB and weekly cleanings, I almost never need to scrub the tires down.

[daveo]

Saw browning here on Michelins and had been using Meg's hot rim cleaner and some cheap dressing. Went to PB's tire cleaner and Meg's Natural Tire dressing and have not seen the browning anymore.

[BlueLibby04]

Ive been using Megs Hot Tire shine, endurance, and ASD since Ive had my Jeep(4yrs) and Ive never had problems with dry or cracked tires.

With that, the front tires get alot more work than the rears since they actually turn the vehicle. The back tires are just along for the ride. This is the reason you rotate tires and the fronts are always worn more than the rear. The front tires change the vehicles direction, which means Newtons first law is applied.

The rear tires get dirty or 'brown' b/c they get hit with all the dirt and road spray from the front tires.

When I dont put tire shine on my tires, they stay nice and black unless I go offroad or drive in the rain. This is b/c tire shines allow dust and dirt to stick to the tire, thus making it look brown. My tires have turned brown with any silicone or water based product that Ive used. Some dont hold on to the dirt or brown as much as other.

Ive never had trouble cleaning a tire with Westleys Bleache White. Ive been using it for over 10 years and its never let me down. I recently found that Megs Super D also works 'ok' for cleaning tires but its not as good as westleys.

[B-Diddy]

With that, the rear tires get dirty or 'brown' b/c they get hit with all the dirt and road spray from the front tires.

Thats exactly what I was gonna say. Ever notice how when you drive in the rain with dressed tires the fronts usually dry still somewhat shiny, but the rears dry dirty with no dressing left? Its because the front tires push the water out of the way so the sidewalls barely get wet while the rears get bombarded with whatever the fronts kick up.

[Setec Astronomy]

Washed the car again this weekend. The back tires had developed a whitish-greyish color as well as some whitish-brown from rain after my session a few posts back. The fronts just had that normal dirty brown look from needing a wash.

I scrubbed the backs again with my lemon Simple Green and the fronts with car wash. Everything dressed up nicely. After some driving through the rain, the tires aren't shiny anymore, but the backs are still black, and the fronts just have a slight dirty brown tinge, so I have finally undone the damage from the caustic tire cleaner. Next time I wash I'll do all four with the Simple Green and I should be set.

The caustic cleaners are going on wheel only duty until they are used up; if my tires need a good cleaning it will be APC until I use up some more stuff then maybe I'll try the Griot's rubber cleaner or the P21S TAW.

[cjv998]

This is really interesting...someone should get down to the underlying chemistry that's going on here.

It seems like the question is: are the cleaners removing brown residue from rubber that was already oxidized (which they should be doing), or are they causing the oxidation themselves (which would cause premature drying of the rubber)? The same thing could be asked of the dressings being used.

I'm no chemist, but here are my thoughts (on how the cleaners and dressings could cause premature wear/drying out/browning):

1. What if the dressings/cleaners (or a byproduct thereof) are absorbed by the rubber, and form a barrier that the antiozonants can't penetrate, therefore keeping them from getting to the surface of the rubber where they need to be in order to be effective? (The more I think about this, the less it holds up.)

2. What if the dressings/cleaners somehow react with the antiozonants and incapacitate them, keeping them from performing their function? (I haven't thought this part through yet, so I'm not sure if it's even chemically possible.)

However, since the browning is basically oxidation of the rubber, don't the dressings act as a barrier between the air and the rubber, which should help to inhibit browning?

What if someone tried to contact one of the tire manufacturers? I know this is a little "out there", but maybe they could help shed some light on the issue? I mean, after all, they did formulate the tires!

What I'd suggest for a good experiment (to test the dressings' effect on tire browning), is for someone to only use tire dressing on one side of the car (yeah, it'd look pretty ridiculous, but this eliminates a few degrees of freedom, namely the variance in browning front-to-back due to varying degrees of sidewall flex and the way debris is thrown up into te air, and if it's done on the same car, eliminates variances due to different driving conditions and tire brands/rubber compositions). Then you could compare the browning of the side with dressing, to the side without, and determine if the dressing caused additional browning, or protected against it. You'd just need to make sure the tires were all evenly cleaned prior to te start of the "test". (I know the obvious suggestion is "well, why don't YOU try it?" Well, I'm not ready to tackle such a task. My car has rarely even been washed (if at all) since winter started. So maybe someone in a warmer climate with a little spare time on their hands would be so kind as to give this a shot?

As far as testing the cleaners, I'd say you should stay your course on this one, and keep trying different cleaners on the same tires, and see how the tires look afterwards, going off the assumption that if a tire ends up more brown than it was initially (assuming it wasn't dressed, or the dressing had worn off), then the cleaner can be assumed to be causing the oxidation.

Personally, my method for cleaning tires is:
I'll spray the tires down with Greased Lightning Orange Blast (full strength, I know it sounds like an aggressive approach) once every 3 car washes or so. I'll let it sit for a minute or so, then scrub with a brush and rinse (resulting in a nice brown residue normally), taking care through the process not to get any cleaner on my wheels. I'll then follow this up by washing the tires and wheels with Meguiar's Gold Class soap at 2x the suggested concentration, with the thought that it'll help to counteract the drying-out effect that Orange Blast seems to have, and restore some moisture to the tires (this step does seem to help restore the black color that Orange Blast sometimes takes away). The 2/3 of the time that I don't use the Orange Blast, I just skip that step and go straight to the GC wash.

[Chris@Optimum]

Washed the car again this weekend. The back tires had developed a whitish-greyish color as well as some whitish-brown from rain after my session a few posts back. The fronts just had that normal dirty brown look from needing a wash.

I scrubbed the backs again with my lemon Simple Green and the fronts with car wash. Everything dressed up nicely. After some driving through the rain, the tires aren't shiny anymore, but the backs are still black, and the fronts just have a slight dirty brown tinge, so I have finally undone the damage from the caustic tire cleaner. Next time I wash I'll do all four with the Simple Green and I should be set.

The caustic cleaners are going on wheel only duty until they are used up; if my tires need a good cleaning it will be APC until I use up some more stuff then maybe I'll try the Griot's rubber cleaner or the P21S TAW.

Have you ever tried Bleach-white? I really like it for getting rubber clean in one pass. I don't know whether it will help in this particular case, but Walmart has it usually and pretty cheap just to try.

[ej8tunerman]

I dont really have anything to REALLY contribute to this thread, but I have noticed that most the time when I am cleaning my tires as well as any other car's tires with purple power (anywhere from 4:1 to 2:1) they seem to get almost more brown looking everytime I clean them. For instance, on my car, which is equipped hankook k106s, I would scrub them once with Purple power and they would like ok, slightly brown. I could then scrub them again and they would look even more brown. I never could understand why? I ordered some Meguiars APC two weeks ago and used this in a foaming sprayer today on my tires when doing an ONR wash. I pre-rinsed the tires and soaked each one with 8:1 Meguiars APC, then proceeded to scrub each one with a tire brush. Once dried, to my amazement, they were completely black. No brown what so ever, and they had never looked this good. What causes this? Is the Purple power cleaning them too well?

[DJBAILEY]

I think its the cleaner stripping the rubber's surface of the built-in conditioners and antioxidants and then the stuff deeper in the rubber leaching back to the surface. Its like a scab on your skin. You've damaged the surface and its repairing itself.