My Bittersweet Experience with Tuf Shine

kuji said:
See I understand that the tires need to be 100% clean before I apply the clearcoat, but what I don't understand is that I used two bottles of the Tuf Shine cleaner and one bottle of Bleche Wite so I just don't understand how the tires would still be dirty. Do you guys think that if I bought another bottle of Tuf Shine cleaner and used it on my tires, would the tires be clean enough to apply the clearcoat then? Cause it seems to me that the clearcoat draws whatever crap is in the tires out.
If not then I am back to old school tires dressings again, talk about a big letdown as I paid more than 60 bucks to get it, shipping, border charges, etc.
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I see you keep at it with the Tuff Shine. You will need something to clean the tires again though. But, do this: give it time. Don't use any dressings for a bit and keep cleaning the tires every so often.

Eventually, all the grease will come out of the tire. Just don't apply anymore dressings. I always recommended, cleaning the tire, waiting overnight (at least) and cleaning it again. Sometimes, it all doesn't come out in one session, but it seems you have a difficult case.

I would try mineral spirits (I think TS recommends this or "paint thinner"). Just be careful not to get it on the rims. I would use old towels. It was a hassle for me too initially (yes, I talked to Bob and he shipped me more cleaner as well), but it did work out perfect and it was surely worth it. Mineral Spirits will clean dressing out of applicators, so it should clean dressings out of tires.

Now I love the product and I have never had to remove my initial application (going on a year). There is no brown when cleaning the tires and only soap is required.

Make sure to put the wheel up on a board like this, so you can get full access to the tire and apply the coating (eventually) without having to touch the dirty ground:

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Keeping the brush clean by scrubbing it on I grit guard under running water helps:

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Another tip is use 2 brushes. A good clean one and a beat up one for the dirtier initial cleaning, NAPA and CarQuest sell a brush like the TS brush:

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The foam should look like this 2 days in a row (2 cleanings):

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This is what you have to look forward too, tire cleaning with soap, no brown:

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Hey Swan, can you post a pic of what your tires look like after one year?

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I top it off once a month, just because I like them glossy, they always pretty much look like this:

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swanicyouth said:
I top it off once a month, just because I like them glossy, they always pretty much look like this:

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Tires look pretty good right there, what's involved in the "topping it off" process?

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So I ordered another bottle of cleaner. I will use it again I guess. The trick is though that when I was scrubbing the tires, the suds were white so I don't understand. I am a but wary to use paint or laquer thinner as it could affect the tires down the road.
All I can say is if this additional cleaning doesn't work, then I give up as I have a car show to go to in the next couple weeks so if this doesn't work then I am going to go back to dressing.
So much work for tires - _ -
 
Klasse Act said:
Tires look pretty good right there, what's involved in the "topping it off" process?

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Whenever I wash the car, I clean the wheels first. When I clean the wheels, I "clean" the tires. Cleaning the tires is just rinsing them, and two quick glides around them with a boars hair wheel cleaning brush and whatever surfactant wheel cleaner I'm using to clean the wheels. There is never any sign of "dirt" or "brown", just white like the picture above. No scrubbing is involved, you can ever just use a towel to wipe clean the tires, but the brush is handy. Its just like washing paint.

That's all it takes to clean. Just like you were cleaning paint. Then "topping off" is just applying the Tuff Shine coating like any other dressing. It's watery, so I brush it on with a Carrand Tire Dressing brush. Its like painting the tire with a watery dressing. It dries in under 10 minutes.

It takes maybe a minute or so more to apply than a dressing. Its not "slippery" like a dressing when you apply it, and you want to brush it or sponge it into all the letters and striations on the face of the tire. You want to get it even.

I just love this product. I can't say enough good things about it. I surely over use it, as it doesn't need to be applied every month, but I like to apply it all the way out to the tread. Tires in no way look "flat" or "undressed" when I go to re-apply it. You could go several months with out re-application.

I probably wash my car twice a week, maybe 7 times a month, so that gives you an idea of how well it holds up. Washing doesn't seem to affect the coating at all. Rain doesn't affect the coating. Snow doesn't affect the coating. Wheel cleaners don't seem to affect the coating (surfactant). It only seems to fade ever so slightly over time.
 
Just to make sure, you do re-apply it from time to time?

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How does the product look when the tire's properly cleaned and coated and about a month of rain and washes happen? How about after 3-6 monthes?

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So after some debate I decided to give the lacquer thinner a try as suggested by Bob at Tuf Shine. When he first mentioned it I was kind of wary but at this point I'm willing to try anything. I got an old rag, soaked it, and slathered it on and rinsed off the tires. The back two tires are newer so they didn't have as much dressing put on over time. After about an hour I came back to see what the tires looked like, and I must say I'm impressed, the thinner did a pretty good job as the back tires look brand new! The front tires are the funny part though as within an hour of putting the thinner on, more crap had come to the surface. My guess is that the front tires must be saturated with old crap!
Is it ok to use the thinner maybe like 3 to 4 times on the tires? I'm just worried about long term affects.

Cheers
Phil
 
One things for sure, this is the difinitive thread on how to jump through the proper hoops to clean a tire good enough for this awesome product. Many will benefit from all the tips and tricks on how to clean those rubber things at all 4 corners!

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Klasse Act said:
Just a thought here but the process to get a tire "clean enough" seems like a lot of work to apply a tire dressing that lasts a long time, I don't know. I mean the act of cleaning your tire with a good cleaner, drying it and then applying a good tire dressing like Pinnacle Black Onyx, Wolfgang Black Diamond or DP tire gel has been good enough for me....and others for quite some time. I get a good build up of whatever tire gel laid down, wash the tires/wheels when I do rinseless wash and in most cases the tires are a nice matte black at that point so I'm pretty happy. If not, I spend what, 4 minutes re-applying a VERY minimum amount of tire gel to my applicator which has a been used previously, so its good some product left over on it.
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I totally agree. Tuf Shine is the best tire dressing/coating I've ever used. Nothing comes even close in durability and it really does maintain that high gloss look even through an entire winter. But............you must get every, and I mean every trace of old tire dressing out of the tire or it will fail miserably.

The first time I used it was on brand new set of Conti Extreme Winter Contact tires that never had tire dressing applied to them, and the Tuf Shine worked great. It lasted through the entire winter, and it was a nasty winter with lots of salt and other road chemicals. I did use the Tuf Shine Cleaner even though no dressing had been applied previously.

When spring came, it was time for new summer tires so I got the excellent Conti Extreme Contat DW. Unfortunately, the tire shop put tire dressing on them. My fault for not reminding them to forgo the tire dressing. I figured no big deal, I'll just strip off the old tire dressing, though it wasn't that old, before I apply the Tuf Shine. Well, it is much more difficult to get the old tire dressing out of the tire, even a new tire with one application, than I expected. I used two applications of the cleaner, waited for the tires to dry. The foam on the cleaner was white, not brown, so I figured I was good to go and applied the coating. It looked great the first day, but the next day it started to flake off just like it did for the OP here.

I can't see spending hours and hours to just to get the tires clean just to use this product. The time involved is not worth it IMHO. It will take much less time and look just about as good to simply apply a good tire dressing every week or two. With more durable dressings like All Season Dressing or Opti-Bond, I can go 2-3 weeks.

Klasse Act said:
Maybe I am missing something here, does this product "really" look like it was just applied weeks after rain and washings? I don't mean a matte look but rather a step or two above matte?
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Yes, it really does maintain it's look that well. It truly is amazing when applied to a perfectly clean tire with zero trace of old tire dressing.

Klasse Act said:
Hmm, maybe I'll give it a shot when I get new tires down the road as I've got such a strong base of tire products on my tires right now that it surely wouldn't work right for me, good luck to you guys looking to try it for the first time and sorry OP for your experience.
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New tires is the perfect application (pun intended LOL) for Tuf Shine IMHO. There is really nothing like it.

Klasse Act said:
How does the product look when the tire's properly cleaned and coated and about a month of rain and washes happen? How about after 3-6 monthes?
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Rain and snow have zero effect on Tuf Shine IMHO, when it is used on brand new tires.

So in summary, I would only use the Tuf Shine on brand new tires that have never had tire dressing applied to them previously. Now, there will be other detailers who are good at getting every last bit of old dressing out of the tires without spending hours cleaning tires, and for them Tuf Shine would be a good option. But it's not for me unless the tires are brand new.


RamAirV1
 
Thanks for all the info RamAirVI and let me say you have great tastes in tires, I'm a Conti DWS fan myself and convinced about 6 other people to get them as well, great product. I wish I could swing snows and put on the Conti DW tire on my car, just for that added grip for when I go the Dragon every year!

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I've used Tuf Shine and spent hours cleaning tires. I had good results with it and only had one little patch (about three ribs) look a little brown which was fine by me. I was paranoid before I used it due to looking at the horror stories on here. I sprayed diluted IPA on the tires for a last clean and it seemed to work pretty well. The shine doesn't last that long because it gets covered with dirt, but once cleaned the tires look good again.

I agree that cleaning tires for hours sucks so I went and bought some of these. One of the best purchase I ever made and makes cleaning tires a breeze.

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Alrighty guys sorry for the delay I actually forgot all about the update. We have success at last! I ended up using the lacquer thinner on the tires and without a doubt in my mind, that was what fixed it. All the crap came out of my tires, and they are looking good! Thanks to Bob over at Tuf Shine for all his help, and took a while and a bit of money to get where we are today, but it was worth it! This was done on June 16th so it has almost been a month with plenty of driving in the rain etc. The pic's below are when the clearcoat was freshly applied, I will update this topic the 16th of this month to show you guys how it has held up.

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Klasse Act said:
Thanks for all the info RamAirVI and let me say you have great tastes in tires, I'm a Conti DWS fan myself and convinced about 6 other people to get them as well, great product. I wish I could swing snows and put on the Conti DW tire on my car, just for that added grip for when I go the Dragon every year!

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Yeah I may put a set of the DWS on my Charger when it is time for new tires. The DW do not come in 18 in for the R/T.

OP, that is as great outcome wiht the lacquer thinner. Wish I knew about that when I had issues with the DW, I wanted to use the Tuf Shine but it kept flaking off no matter what I did. Thanks for the update.

RamAirV1
 
OP, car looks great with the Stang wheels and the tires look great, looking forward to seeing updates on this product.

RamAir, you'll love the DWS', not quite as sticky as the DW tire but then again it can't be, it designed to do everything and I can honestly tell you, from driving the DWS in all extreme conditions, that this tire WILL NOT DISAPPOINT you! Been through heavy snow, pouring rain and pushed the car as hard as I could on the Tail of the Dragon with the DWS on 2 different cars (Honda Fit sport and CRZ) and they performed great!

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Klasse Act said:
OP, car looks great with the Stang wheels and the tires look great, looking forward to seeing updates on this product.

RamAir, you'll love the DWS', not quite as sticky as the DW tire but then again it can't be, it designed to do everything and I can honestly tell you, from driving the DWS in all extreme conditions, that this tire WILL NOT DISAPPOINT you! Been through heavy snow, pouring rain and pushed the car as hard as I could on the Tail of the Dragon with the DWS on 2 different cars (Honda Fit sport and CRZ) and they performed great!

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Thanks for the feedback on the DWS. That is good to know! When I buy my next set of tires I will remember to tell them NOT to put tire dressing on them!

RamAirV1
 
Update! It's been a little over a month now. The tires look a LITTLE bit dull, however we have had lots of rain this past month. Either than that they look good! Not going to bother to take pics. I reapplied the clearcoat, not nessesary but I like shiny tires (knock on wood) :D

So this wraps up it up then. Many thanks again to Bob and his crew for helping me out with this and sending me free product. And if you run into any problems yourself, the laquer thinner was the ticket for me, but just don't use too much so your tires won't dry rot.

Take care
Phil
 
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