Silicone based - this is a misnomer as many products contain silicone, and they are usually water based. This includes Armor All products. There is nothing at all wrong with silicone as this is an inert ingredient that is designed to enhance or modify a characteristic of another ingredient. Generally they are used to enhance gloss, ease application or flow of a product, or make wipe off easier. The only time silicones are a problem at all is when they are used in an environment where fresh paint is being sprayed. Even a very tiny bit of silicone that lands on a prepped surface will cause fisheyes when the paint is sprayed over it. Understandably then, body shops don't want waxes, tire dressings or vinyl dressings in their facility. But products like Meguiar's M39 Heavy Duty Vinyl Cleaner and Silicone Free Dressing are indeed silicone free and therefore safe in that environment.
Otherwise, most all Meguiar's dressings, whether for tires, interior or exterior vinyl, rubber and plastic, will contain some level of silicone. We once got into a discussion on another forum about which dressing to use on the dash of the cars. Of course there were as many product recommendations as there were responses, but one individual was adamant about using a "water based" product and not a "silicone based" one since those silicone things would rot the dash. Uh-huh. He further stated that he had been using ONLY Brand-X for the last 5 years on his dash, monthly applications in fact, and his dash still looked like new. Proof positive, to him at least, that silicone was horrible and water based was the way to go. Well, we had a sneaking suspicion that the product he mentioned (a well respected and fairly expensive "boutique" type product) probably contained some silicone. So, making fair use of the Interwebs we sought out the website of the manufacturer in question and pulled up the MSDS on the product. Well, not only does it contain silicone, but it contains about twice as much as Meguiar's Natural Shine does!!! That isn't good, bad or otherwise. It just is. Naturally we posted this info back to that particular thread, but the guy never came back.
As for Armor All causing all those dash boards to crack and crumble, well, that isn't quite true either. Back in the 1970's or so, when Armor All first came to prominence, they really had zero competition in that market. The quality of vinyl and plastics used back then weren't all that great either. Over time these materials would become brittle, and repeated temperature extremes would cause something akin to material fatigue quite similar to metal fatigue. You know how you can bend a paper clip back and forth until it finally just breaks? That's metal fatigue, and the same concept applied to these older vinyls and plastics. But these materials are also somewhat absorbent due to their porous nature. So, when the fatigue and/or get dried out - basically when they've become brittle - adding virtually any liquid to them in any volume will cause them to swell. And then crack. Not the fault of the product being applied to it.
Tire browning, technically "blooming", is a function of the anti ozonant component blended into the tire during the manufacturing process. This material is designed to leech to the surface when the tire is in motion and under load. In the RV industry there are recommendations regarding tire replacement based on age, not mileage. That's because many RVs sit idle for extended periods so these anti ozonants don't have the opportunity to migrate to the surface. A tire rated for long tread life will generally contain more anti ozonants than a performance tire rated for a short tread life. Left to accumulate on the sidewall, these anti ozonants will have a brown coloration to them. Now apply a tire dressing with some cleaning ability and that brown color is brought to the surface. Heck, just the act of cleaning a high anti ozonant content tire will cause all kinds of brown gunk to wash off the sidewall!
In any event, while the majority of our dressings are water based and almost all of them contain some degree of silicone, none of our products contain the DuPont PTFE product.
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