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Best Tire Cleaner

Messages
90
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42
Points
17
Location
Overland Park, KS, USA
#1
My wheels are ceramic coated so I’m looking for something to clean the tires with, I thought about the chemical guys nonsense, but read some comments that it can brown the tires, anyone know of anything good?
 

GearHead_1

1000 Post Club
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Location
Utah
Vehicle
Exploder
#3
Gonna need to admit something here. I've never found an "easy" way to really clean tires. I mean really clean tires. I used to like "BLECHE WHITE" (I believe that's the way it's spelled) for tires but they changed the formula and the newer stuff just isn't as good and could be nasty on wheels if allowed to dwell. Believe me when I tell you I've tried most of the popular name brand and many of the esoteric specialty tire cleaners. I almost always come back to a good old bristle brush, Ajax cleaner and a pressure washer.

I like to use a brush that conforms to the swell of the tire sidewall, it keeps me from hitting the rim. Your coating may help protect the wheel from most chemicals. I treat coated or sealed wheels just the same as I do any paint.

Now when it comes to finishing up the tire (I like a matte, deep black finish) I have my favorite. I've had poor success with tire coatings as far as durability goes. I suspect that simply comes down to me having too high of an expectation.
 

Last edited:
Messages
25
Reactions
9
Points
2
Location
Windham, NH, USA
#4
Get a rubber and trim cleaner, not wheel cleaner, it will work good.
 

Autoworker

1000 Post Club
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Location
Ohio
#5
I’ve always had good luck with Fantastic or 409 and a scrub brush.
 

Messages
220
Reactions
181
Points
37
Location
Columbus, OH, USA
#6
Tuf Shine tire cleaner is hands down the best, but any cleaner will do the trick, scrubbing them is the key with either a hand brush or drill/DA one.
 

Messages
39
Reactions
22
Points
2
Location
Ontario, Canada
#7
I just use water and a micro fiber cloth and scrub the tires firmly. They obviously don't shine or have a very deep black appearance to them, but they certainly aren't brown either. I never use tire shine for that purpose, once you stop, your tires are brown within days. I like the natural tire look.

When I got a ceramic coat and PPF put on my ST, the shop shined the tires despite me explicitly telling them not to. Needless to say, once it wore off, I scrubbed the tires with hot water and a micro fiber and the brown tint they had was gone.
 

GTP

Member
Messages
82
Reactions
73
Points
17
Location
Indy
#8
Everywhere I go, it seems they assume I want tire black applied to my tires. NOT! It is SO hard to scrub off.

I finally heard Bleche Wite is good, and I tried it. Worked great. Easy to use with a CG foam tire pad, no hard elbow grease required.
 



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