Tire Browning and Alkaline Tire Cleaners - Page 3

Setec Astronomy · 02-16-08, 04:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by ej8tunerman

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. 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?

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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. You've damaged the surface and its repairing itself.

I don't know what's in Purple Power; the Hi-Temp Tire Cleaner has 2-butoxy Ethanol and the EO AWATC has Sodium Metasilicate Pentahydrate (according to the bottles). It may be that if your tires haven't been washed in 2 years, that the net effect of using these types of cleaner is a positive one, but for a car that's washed fairly often, IMO it's a negative effect (at least for the Hi-Temp, I know the AWATC causes the same brown foam, but it's been so long since I've used it I'm not sure about residual browning).

As I stated in a previous post, I had the same experience as ej8tunerman, using an APC to clean the tire (in my case lemon Simple Green) resulted in a much blacker, better looking tire, that's stayed that way.

Setec Astronomy · 02-16-08, 04:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by integritydetail

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.

Boy, there are some people who are completely anti-Bleche White...as mentioned in previous posts I think I'm set for now. I think it's been almost 30 years since I last used Bleche White...I don't think I've had any whitewalls since 1980...

Bigpoppa3346 · 02-16-08, 06:39

Some very interesting points being made in this thread, and I'm not sure what to make of it. Maybe I'll just reserve the Hi-Temp for full details, and pick up some of the Meguar's APC.

I *do* seem to notice some more browning on the cars that see Hi-Temp pretty often than those that see it <once per month, but I always thought it was just the different tire type/brand.

howareb · 02-16-08, 07:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Setec Astronomy

Boy, there are some people who are completely anti-Bleche White...as mentioned in previous posts I think I'm set for now. I think it's been almost 30 years since I last used Bleche White...I don't think I've had any whitewalls since 1980...

Setec,

Did you ever get the AutoInt Wheel and Tire cleaners?... and if so how did it work out for you?

Setec Astronomy · 02-16-08, 10:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by howareb

Setec,

Did you ever get the AutoInt Wheel and Tire cleaners?... and if so how did it work out for you?

I have been trying to be on a "no-buy" policy until I thin my supplies out a bit (probably till 2013 or so) so, no, I haven't bought the AI Custom Wheel Cleaner. I don't recall them having something they refer to as a tire cleaner, though.

Setec Astronomy · 02-16-08, 02:29

I guess I should have taken some pics before. Sorry this one is blurry (sun was going down) but this is after driving in the rain and then snow/salt.

The whitish area at the 2:30 position iswhat the whole tire looked like before the last scrubbing. I'm guessing that spot was at the bottom last time I scrubbed.

DRPSNERTLE · 02-17-08, 10:58

Sorry for the newbie post on this subject, but do you think this issue could be related to the tire manufacturers' chemistry in their tire compounds? Maybe there could be a correlation between Goodyear (no brown on my car) and BF Goodrich (lots of brown on my wife"s car) or el-cheapo's (minimal on my son's car)? I use Simple Green at every tire rotation and have found this very puzzling in my experience! BTW I always use 303 as a tire dressing.

Where is spell check on this message board????

DOH! What is that little red line?

kenleekenlee · 02-18-08, 02:43

Hey! Another 02-04 RSX owner! With stock tires! IME, as with others' experiences, EO AWATC makes the Michelins on my RSX look absolutely awful. Michelin has their own brand of tire cleaner, which is advertised to not contain any acidic cleaning agents (so probably alkaline), but EO also claim the same. I currently only use the remaining wash in the bucket with a stiff brush to clean the tires. Dressing with AA extreme gel and then wiping with a rag has provided good results so far, with tires having a nice black matte look. No problems with the gel to date, and the tires don't look any worse for the wear.

silk · 02-18-08, 08:49

I only use soap & water to clean my tires. Switched to water-based dressings. Never have a browning issue.

G35stilez · 04-28-08, 06:25

Setec: Seems you have really analyzed this area. I've been using the TOL Tire Cleaner cut 50/50 for a couple years now. Yes, most vehicles I use it on are vehicles that haven't been detailed in a while, but when using it on my weekly cleaned vehicles (say, once every 6-8 weeks), it just removes the dirt/grime, and is pretty obvious it doesn't affect the layers of Z16 I've built up. The tires don't foam up with brown grime and when rinsed after scrubbing, the tires are dark, matte black sans any reminance of dirt/grime/residue.

I have noticed that on my Sebring (company car) in which I do between 700-900 miles/week, the tires were almost always brown after a hard rain storm. Since switching to new Firestones and continuing with the same regimen, after 6k miles, this hasn't happened at all; tires stay very black.

I noticed on a Range Rover I worked on yesterday, the tires were very brown, then I scrubbed them with 1:1 TOL Tire Cleaner (brown foam created), and rinsed, the brown level was about the same, but the tire was clean to the touch (towel wipe). I dressed with Z16 x 2 and they looked great. Tires were Pirelli Scorpions, BTW.

Will certainly look into Lemon Simple Green; thank you for noting.

Setec Astronomy · 04-28-08, 06:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by G35stilez

Setec: Seems you have really analyzed this area.

Will certainly look into Lemon Simple Green; thank you for noting.

Not really, I just had a problem and puzzled over it for a while. I clean nowhere near as many tires as you do nor have I tried as many products. My results could be specific to my brand/model of tire as well as my products, or maybe by diluting the TOL product 4:1 instead of using at higher strength kept it from doing its job, resulting in only a "half-clean" tire.

I only noted the Lemon Simple Green because that was what I used that worked, and I'm out of it now and going to try to use up some of the other APC's I have, so don't consider my success to be an endorsement.

Setec Astronomy · 05-12-08, 04:52

Update: (Sorry, no pics)

Well, Meg's APC diluted 10:1 caused some light browning, so that doesn't look like it's going to be my APC of choice. I think the only other one I have is Charlie's APC; I guess I'll try that next.

Back in my pre-Autopia days when I would use P21S at every wash, I used to use the runoff from that to scrub around the tire, which worked pretty well, and I don't remember any browning, so I may try that or the Griot's wheel cleaner on the tire to see.