Tire Aesthetics

[mityman]

I'm just curious to here what everyone is using to clean your tires up.

I personally don't care for the wet look on the tires of my Mustang as I feel it takes away the vintage feel. I don't think anyone was using anything like that in the 70's either. I've been using SOS pads to scrub my tires clean and I think I picked that up from my Dad doing that when I was a kid.

I have been having a time trying to get the white letters to be white without stains in them. When I had the tires installed 2 of them had a brownish cast at the top of the raised white letters. I've tried several different products to bleach them whiter but nothing has worked so far. Any suggestions?

 

[luxstang]

For clean white letters you can use several things like toothpaste, fine steel wool, glass cleaner (only works in easy cases) and my favorite: benzine (or whatever you call gasoline used for cleaning purposes or thinner or such stuff)

Brake cleaner on a rag will work fine too but is a little harder to work with because it evaporates so fast.

Don´t worry, the letters will not wear off because they are made from solid white rubber.

If you get black or brown streaks on the letters it is usually dirt from the side of the letters or the surrounding area of the tire that you are dragging onto the letters. Keep the rag flat on the surface and it will be fine.

 

[matrixx]

Here's what I use.

Purple Power

Caution: at full strength it could eat into the rubber if left on tire for too long. You want to do one tire at a time. I actually cut it down to 50/50 with water.

Best if you remove wheel from car to protect paint and body work. The stuff is crazy but you got to be smart too.

It also melts the brake dust off your daily driver/winter beaters wheels and makes them look brand new without effort. I don't have $1,000 in my tires either, if I did I would be way more cautious.

 

[Qcode351mach]

Simple green then Adams vrt applied with a sponge

http://www.adamspolishes.com/p-512-adams-super-vrt-tire-trim-dressing.aspx

 

[Bill73Ragtop]

Remove wheel and tire from car. Wash both sides with Simple Green or similar cleaner. I like to use a medium stiff brush around the lettering to remove anything caught inside them. When dry, I use a little bit of lacquer thinner on a rag and carefully wipe the top surface of each letter. Once a year is enough for my occasional (and then some) driver.

 

[Wolverine]

I'm just curious to here what everyone is using to clean your tires up.

I personally don't care for the wet look on the tires of my Mustang as I feel it takes away the vintage feel. I don't think anyone was using anything like that in the 70's either. I've been using SOS pads to scrub my tires clean and I think I picked that up from my Dad doing that when I was a kid.

I have been having a time trying to get the white letters to be white without stains in them. When I had the tires installed 2 of them had a brownish cast at the top of the raised white letters. I've tried several different products to bleach them whiter but nothing has worked so far. Any suggestions?

Amway Metal Polish.

Really. Won't get any brighter white, guaranteed.

 

[mityman]

Thanks for all the great tips. I will give those a try.

 

[MeZapU]

Comet scouring powder and a scrub brush with water works great as well. Was my dads old trick from back in the day.

 

[BigBlue]

I used to have white letter tires and always used Bleche-Wite, which was designed to clean whitewalls. It always worked great for me. I would spray it all over the tire, give it a couple minutes, scrub, then rinse. After the tire was dry, I'd spray a bit of original Armor-All on the tire, spread it, then wipe it off till it wasn't glossy. The rubber would absorb the thin coat of protectant and leave a deep, natural black without the tacky shine.

 

[mityman]

i tried the Bleche-White and it did make the white areas look clean but didn't remove the brownish haze at the top of the letters. Maybe I didn't let it sit long enough. I'm kinda wondering if I might have gotten a couple of factory second tires by mistake but its too late to run back to the tire shop since they have been on the car for almost a year now.

 

[BigBlue]

i tried the Bleche-White and it did make the white areas look clean but didn't remove the brownish haze at the top of the letters. Maybe I didn't let it sit long enough. I'm kinda wondering if I might have gotten a couple of factory second tires by mistake but its too late to run back to the tire shop since they have been on the car for almost a year now.

Hmmm... sounds like a very stubborn stain. Well I'm sure some of the suggestions by the members here will work. That stain's got to give in to something. A buddy of mine used to put water resistant white shoe polish on his letters. Can't tell you how effective it was against the weather, but they always looked nice whenever I saw his car. Duplicolor also sells some product called Hot Tires that's made specifically to paint white letters. Again, don't know how good the product is... but it's an option. If you find a good solution be sure to keep us posted.

 

[LCB1]

Wizards Power Clean

http://jclperformance.com/Wizards-Power-Clean-11088.htm

 

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they used to make a white "grease" pencil, kinda like lumber crayon. I used them in the 60s. Don't know if they still make them, check with an old time tire shop