Tire Dressing

[BenzMeister]

Recently I had to send back for credit 4 tires I purchased from Tire Rack in 01, they were Yokohama AVS DB's, when my wife had her car serviced our mechanic said all the tires had dry rot, I looked at them and between all the treads on each tire there were cracks 360 around. I called tire rack, and the sales person told me there are a few things that could happen, Sun and UV, sitting on hot pavement a long time, enviromental factors, etc. I ordered 4 new tires and sent the old ones back, got a $134 credit plus shipping. The Tire rack people told me not to use tire dressing as they dry out tires and could cause dry rot, they said to get a good vinyl rubber clearner and that's it. What do you folks think? Thanks and have a great weekend, wherever you are!

[Denlasoul]

Tire dressing shouldnt cause the dry rot. It's not like you are dressing the threads and such...right? It would make sense that these compunds would dry out the rubber, but I cannot say 100%. If it is causing the cracks you would also see them on the face of the tires (where people typically spray the cleaner).

I would talk to Luke over at TireRack. He's a moderator at one of the other websites. He can help you out if there are any problems.

DLS

[William420]

Dressing w/Petroleum distillates (usually found in those super ultra shiny shiny high silicone content dressing) can cause rubber & vinyl to crack. If you want to play safe, stick to water based dressing as these do not contains Petro. Distill or the bad silicones and safe for rubber, and as added bonus, most contain strong U/V blocking protection. Some of the waster based dressing off top of my head are: Zaino Z16 (Internet), 303 Aerospace (Internet), Lexol Vinylex (Local Store), Griots Rubber & Vinyl protectant (I think that's what it's called, something like that).

On my own car, I use Eagle one tire wet. It is not water based and does containt petroleum distill, but I've been using it without problem so far so would continue to use it. I buy new tires every year so I guess it's never long enough to do any real damage to them.

[714guy]

Meguires Endurances works great, dont know any harm tho, been using it for a year now and no problem.

[davis449]

I've been using Armorall spray on and fall off stuff for years on every car I've owned and NEVER had a problem.