What is the best way to get the white lettering on your tires to look like brand new (especially the front ones)? Thank you in advance.

 

One of the quickest ways is using an SOS, or Brillo, pad. That works as long as there is still white on the letters.

 

I've found Simple Green to work great at getting off heavy dirt.

 

You could reverse your tires....then you wouldn't have to worry about it.
SOS works the best though. The car wash I go to has a special tire brush that works pretty good for me. I will probably go black walls out on my next set of tires.

 

My personal favorite is Meguiar's Citri-Gel and a nylon bristled brush.

Be careful with just about any chemical that you utilize on your tires. Most of the chemicals on the market (Westley's BleachWhite (which I think is a fine product), degreasers, etc...) aren't designed for use on your wheels and the overspray or run off from your tires can, potentially, damage the clear coat that is on most factory wheels. Further, if you don't have clear coating on the wheels, it could be even worse considering that unprotected metal is very prone to pitting and other problems from chemicals.

Your best bet it to utilize a chemical, whatever it may be, according to the manufac's recommendations and dilutions. Pay special attention to where you're spraying it and, under no circumstances should you let the chemical dwell on the wheel for long periods of time.

Here's my procedure:

1. Wet entire vehicle including wheels, wheel wells, and asphalt beneath the tire.

2. Apply Citri-Gel to the immediate surface of the tire and move to the other tire on the same side of the vehicle and repeat on that tire.

3. Return to the first tire and, using a nylon bristled brush, agitate the chemical helping to release the stubborn stuck-on grime.

4. Immediately rinse tire one.

5. Repeat for tire two.

6. Spray entire vehicle again and rinse driveway/asphalt so that the chemical is diluted and won't cause problems on the driving surface.

7. Repeat on the other side...

Under no circumstance should your tire brush be used on any other portion of your vehicle with the only exception being wheel wells. I recommend keeping a flushing amount of water on the wells when you spray your chemical so that you won't have any potential pitting or other problems with any metal parts that may be exposed in your wheel wells (ie: Springs, brake lines, etc...). Rinse well!


I hope that helps!

RP

 

it does, thank you everyone for your input.

 

I have found the best results with Wesley's Bleach-White and a good steel bristled brush!

 

Personally I like 'Spray-Nine' mostly because I can't find Wesley's Bleach-White anywhere around here anymore! Oh and I use a nylon bristled brush.

 

I keep Westley's in my aresonal... in fact, just bought a big bottle of it at WallyWorld last weekend... It's good stuff but EXTREMELY caustic.

USE WITH CAUTION and proper safety gear! (how's that for an OSHA advertisement huh?)

RP

 

What I used for years...until I had my BFG's mounted with the letters on the inside...Ajax and a nylon brush. Always got the white letters spanking clean. If the white on your letters is rubbed off or scraped up you can re-paint them. They make paint pens to do that. Like this.

 

My vote, hands down, Wesley's bleach white, a brush and viola, like new tires. RP is right though, watch the overspray.

 

Spray-Nine for you and me both Joe, and I sell Bleche-White. Nothing that smells that acidic (Bleche-White) is going near my vehicle. Spray-nine does a beautiful job on tires and white lettering/white walls.

SL

 

I like Castrol Superclean degreaser and a tire nylon brush.

 

I have found the best way to clean white letters is Wseley's bleach white and a hard brisstle brush. Spray the bleach white on a dry tire, I don't know why, but this seems to work better than when the tire is wet.

 

One possibly hidden tidbit in RockPick's excellent advice. (I use his exact process too.) Wetting the driveway around the tire prevents the driveway from getting bleached along with your white letters. Don't ask me how I know this. Good luck!