Well, I've purchased a bottle of the DP Tire Coating and the DP Tire cleaner. I've had mixed results so far.
First set of tires where purchased same day they were coated and only had the factory mold release coating on them. Used Bleeche-White tire cleaner first 2 times in effort to save on the DP tire cleaner. The second cleaning produced white foam. Then cleaned with the DP Tire cleaner 2 more times. Both times I only got white foam. Did it the second time with the DP just to make sure. They were big truck tires with large side knobs. I applied 3 coats to the tires applying the next layer after I had done all 4 tires so there was at least 30 min between layers. The coating is still going strong. The truck was driven up to Boston, MA during that Nor'easter over Thanksgiving driving through rain then sleet then 10-12" of snow as it travelled north.
The second set of tires were on my own car. The tires are 1 year old Michelin Pilots with 8000 miles. I've only purchased the car in October and the tires have only had whatever the dealer put on them when I purchased the car. Whatever it was it faded quickly and they had been washed with a sponge with CG Citrus Clear Red and CG Strong Wash prepwash combo that I used on the car. They were also washed with a sponge with the Autoglym PowerMax3 TFR that I also used when prepping the car for polishing. There were no signs of the dealer dressing at this point. Two months later when I'm finally done with paint, I jacked up the car and removed these wheels so I could Opti-Coat them of which I put 3 layers on.
I again cleaned the tires with the Bleeche-White tire cleaner 2 times and then cleaned with the DP Tire cleaner 3 times. Only got a slight amount of dirt with the first DP cleaning. The 2nd and 3rd times I only got white foam. The tires were allowed to dry for more than 24 hours while I worked on hand polishing the wheels and applying the Opti-Coat. The driver's side tires received 3 layers about 20-30 minutes apart. They were always dry to the touch before reapplying. The passenger side tires also got 3 layers of tire coating but with much longer times between coats. It was 6 hours after the 1st then waited overnight for the 3rd.
Well, yesterday was the first time I've taken the car out of the garage in 2.5 months (been a slow process working on it whenever I could find the time). That DP Tire coating had about 7-9 days of drying in the garage. I went to Walmart today which is about a 5 mile drive. When I got to Walmart all 4 tires had the coating totally flaking off. Looked like peeling sunburnt skin. The dust flakes of it were sticking to the sides and back of the car.
I was shocked that it could completely fail like that from a 5 mile drive. The tires were clean, at least I thought so. I did 2-3 cleanings on each tire that produced only white foam. Honestly I thought I was going overboard on the cleaning but wanted to see how long this could last.
So the obvious problem must be that there is still something on the rubber preventing the coating from bonding. If there is then it produces no color change when cleaning with the DP Tire Cleaner and apparently it not strong enough to remove whatever is on my tires. But damn. that was 2 cleanings with Bleeche-White and the 2-3 cleanings with the DP Tire Cleaner. They sure looked clean and felt stripped.
What other factors do you think could be at play here? Could it be that Michelin Pilots tires have a high silicone rubber content that don't take dressings well? Could it have ben the temperature of the rubber when the coating was applied? It was not warm, only about 40-55 degrees outside when I applied it. The rubber was cold. Could I have applied too much per layer? The product application description sure makes it sound like you wet the tire with the coating instead of trying to spread it far in thin layers. It always dried fine and smooth with no signs of excess.
When I installed the wheels back on the car they looked great. The tires were nice and black with a slightly glossier than satin sheen. The look reminded me of the Optimum Opti-Bond tire gel look.
Well I'll obviously have to reclean the tires and try again. However, the Opticoat on the wheels was only applied about 2-3 weeks ago and I want to give it its 30 day full cure time before using the harsh tire cleaners again just to be safe. So I guess I'll be driving around with peeling tires for a few weeks.
It was so disappointing that it only last 5 miles!
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