Cleaning Your Vehicle’s Tires

Cleaning your tires does not have to be a tedious process. Even old tires can look almost new again if you clean them with the right solutions and materials.

Clean, shiny sidewalls do an awful lot to dress up your ride. You don’t realize just how filthy tires get from normal operation—and that’s true many times over if you drive off road or soft road.

Tires collect road dirt, dust from brake pad wear, and oil residue. The brake pad dust is quite abrasive, so never use on the rest of your car the sponges, brushes and rags you use on tires or wheels.

Avoid Mechanical Cleaning

Here’s what not to do: Don’t rely on the fast-rotating scrub brushes at a drive-through car wash to get your tires and wheels clean. Your tires may look pretty good—and quite good if you apply a sealant afterwards—but the brushes can cause serious damage to your wheels and especially to wheel covers. The strong cleaner used also can reduce the shine on your wheels by eating away at a clear coat or paint.

Natural Cleaners

If you’re washing your vehicle anyway, go ahead and wash the tires and wheels, but use a separate bucket, water and sponge for the tires/wheels.

Now get serious. You really can scrub tires clean without resorting to harsh chemicals. Try a natural cleaner such as Simple Green. It contains eucalyptus oil and other ingredients that cut effortlessly through grease. It’s so mild that it’s nontoxic, but it cleans grease so thoroughly that some mechanics use it full-strength rather than using a petroleum distillate to clean grease from gears and other car parts.

Simple Green is easy on finishes, but you might want to test it on the inward-facing wheel surface to make sure it won’t mar the finish.

Here’s how to clean tires:

1. Spray the tire with full-strength Simple Green. It can be used on black walls, whitewalls or raised white letters.
2. Let Simple Green work for about a minute.
3. Scrub the sidewall but not the wheel with a medium-stiff brush.
4. Rinse the tire and wheel with a hose.
5. Dry the tire with a rag. Dry the wheel with separate towel to ensure no extra cleaner gets on the wheel.

The tire should be pretty clean, with black rubber and, if there is any, white trim. If the tire still appears a bit yellowed or brown—an off-road tire might look that way after one cleaning—repeat the process a second time, and even a third if the tire had been caked in mud.

Here's how to clean whitewall tires.

Specialty Cleaners

You can buy specialty tire cleaners, such a ArmorAll or Black Magic, but using one will require a bit more care. That’s because these cleaners might harm the wheel finish, whether it’s a polish, clear coat or paint.

As above, clean the tire and wheel with soap and water, keeping the bucket and tools for the tire and wheel apart from what’s used on the rest of the car.

Then use the tire cleaner, following directions on the container. Generally, you will:

1. Spray the tire with the cleaner. Take care not to get it on an alloy wheel.
2. Let the cleaner work for as long as the directions say.
3. Scrub the sidewall but not the wheel with a medium-stiff brush.
4. Rinse the tire and wheel with a hose.
5. Dry the tire with a rag. Dry the wheel with a separate rag to keep more cleaner from getting on the wheel.

Make the Tire Shine by Cleaning It

Finish off the job by applying a tire dressing to the tire when it’s dry. Again, make sure it doesn’t get onto the wheel.

Use the applicator that came with the dressing, a sponge or a rag. Some people recommend a water-based sealant rather than a silicone-based sealant. You can apply multiple layers of dressing for a deeper shine. Examples are ArmorAll, Meguiar’s Endurance Car Gel and Black Shine.