Do tire cleaners hurt tires?

[glen e]

Recently are I used mother’s back to black tire cleaner to get off some brown tire blooming that had come to the surface of my new Michelin tires. It worked perfectly. Someone else pointed out that Meguires hot rim cleaner also works well. At that point somebody chimed in on another car site that you shouldn’t get rid of the brown on top of your tires, because it protected the tire against OZone. Can anybody comment about the possibility of you ruining your tires because you wipe off the “special brown protectant”.

I’ll be damned if I’m gonna run around town with a completely detailed car and brown tires… Personally I’m sure that it doesn’t , but would like some corroboration from the professionals here.

[Bill D]

By the time any real damage is evident you may need new tires. People have been using these cleaners on tires for a long tine without evident side effects. But to be safe, you could use cleaners made specifically and only for tires. They really ought to be totally safe.

[DBAILEY]

Strong APC can hurt a tire by leaching too much of the petroleum wax and carbon black from the tire rubber. LA Totally Awesome is an APC that I felt pulled too much out of the tire. You can keep cleaning and getting dirty suds when you know that the surface has to clean at that point. Then the tire tries to repair itself by those things migrating from inside the tire to the outer surface. Causing new blooming. You want a cleaner that just cleans the surface dirt. The M37 and Tuffshine tire cleaners to exactly that. The carbon black protects against UV damaging the rubber and the petroleum wax protects against ozone.

I think a tire kept properly cleaned with the right cleaner and dressed with a water based tire dressing surely has to be better in the long run than a tire that has never been cleaned and has a permanent layer of road film made up of who knows what. I think most reputable manufacturers of tire dressings are adding some additional protection too. I suppose that you could easily get carried away with cleaning the tires too frequently which may be detrimental.

[FUNX650]

With today’s tires being composed of
~70% synthetic rubber(s)...I don’t
really concern myself a whole lot with
tire-specific cleaners “hurting” said tires.

Instead, my main concern is whether, or
not, tire cleaners will cause damage to
things such as (but not limited to): vehicles’
wheels and braking systems’ components.




I’ll be damned if I’m gonna run around
town with a completely detailed car and
brown tires…

:iagree:

•The word tire comes from the word attire;
-meaning: a tire “dresses-up” a wheel.
-Nope: A dirty tire isn’t “dressy”.



Bob