Adventures in Detailing has been asked to cover an often overlooked area…your vehicles rims & tires.

It IS possible to just scrub, dry, then throw on some tire shine…& your tires will look better, but for best results, let’s try a slightly different procedure.

Equipment:

• pressure washer (or garden hose)
• tire brush
• all-purpose or wheel well brush (optional)
• spoke/wheel brush (optional)
• spray bottle degreaser or all-purpose cleaner
• spray bottle chemical wash (spoke & wheel cleaner/whitewall cleaner/non-acid or non-caustic cleaner depending on your rims & preferences)
• blower (optional)
• spray bottle tire shine or tire shine gel with applicator or terry cloth
• terry cloth
• nitrile or similar disposable gloves (optional)
• protective glasses

Procedure:

• place your vehicle where the brake dust & runoff from the tires will filter into the ground (preferably on a grasscrete or similar area). You want to avoid having contaminants enter our storm system & find their way out into our ocean ecosystem as much as possible.
• before you start each rim and tire, wet the grass around the area you will be working. This will help to protect the grass & prevent temporary brown patches if you are using anything that can “burn” them. Try to use biodegradable products as much as possible.
• If the sun is fairly strong, position your vehicle so the sunlight does not hit one side or the other directly. If this is not possible, start on the side in the shade. When you are done cleaning that side, progress to the sunny side. Before working on it, feel the rim to see if it is hot. If it is, spray it with water until it feels cool to the touch. Hot rims can show chemical stains which could become difficult to remove.
• If you are working in the shade, you may spray degreaser on multiple tires/rims at once, if you are in the sun, it would be advisable to work on one at a time.
  • if your rim is “open” (the inside is highly visible from the side of your vehicle) & you want to clean it also, mist the inside being sure to cover the areas behind the face of the rim, the switch to stream & hit the areas farther in that the mist did not reach.
  • mist the face of the rim, tire & wheel well.
    • degreaser often works better if you let it sit for a minute, but before it dries. Mist again if necessary.
  • scrub the tire with your tire brush. If your tire has built up grime, road dirt, or old tire shine, you should literally be able to see it scrubbing off with your tire brush. If you are performing this procedure in a driveway, be sure this black sludge/tar gets removed or shot off into the grass or plants where nature will be able to slowly dispose of it. If you leave it on your driveway, it can get on your shoes & then into your interior carpets where it will cause you a much bigger headache.
  • scrub the wheel-well as deep in as you would like to go. If you have a raised truck or a big suv with a wide open wheel-well, obviously this is more important than a car that you can barely squeeze your brush between the tire & the wheel-well wall.
  • if you are working relatively fast, you can continue to the next step, if you are having to put in some scrubbing time you may want to shoot the whole thing off with your pressure washer or garden hose
  • if your rim is open, repeat the procedure you performed with the degreaser with your “chemical wash” to the interior of the rim. (On successive cleanings {if you keep up with it} it is better to use non-caustic cleaners that are less likely to promote rusting. Keeping up with the maintenance of your vehicle will help it to retain it’s value as much as possible!)
  • mist the face of the rim with your chemical wash (if the rim turns white in a mass of tiny white bubbles, spray it off immediately & wipe over with soapy water. Your rim is aluminum or a custom soft metal alloy. You should not use the chemical wash you are using without knowing what you are doing. If you have a custom alloy or powder coated rim, Just use soap & water, then if you really want to, polish with an aluminum polish like Mothers^tm or other soft metal polish).
    • Spray upwards towards the rim as much as possible. You cannot see what is on the sides of the rim facing towards the ground, so these areas should receive most of the action. (alternatively, drive your car half a rim forward or back after you have finished all 4 tires/rims & repeat the procedures again.) Pressure wash the rims off. Imagine your tires are square shaped & try to pressure wash them from all four corners, again paying most attention to the undersides that are not as visible. If you have thin slats or apertures in your rims, it will be better to concentrate on what you can see, roll your vehicle half a rim forward when you’re done with all four tires & repeat the procedure again.
      • If you want to get your rims a bit cleaner, use your all-purpose brush lightly over your rims this is fine for most rims, however if you have a Jaguar, Porsche, or if your rims are aluminum, custom alloy, or just really shiny looking polished chrome it is not worth risking using a brush, stick with the pressure washer or do it by hand with your soft terry or a separate sponge. You can always use a metal polish later.
      • if your rims are wide open & you want to get the insides done, but do not want to remove the tires, you may use your pressure washer, a brush or your hand with a terry. There are brush attachments you can attach to a drill to get behind the face of the rim, but for most people I think these will be unnecessary. If you decide to try to get behind the face of the rim by hand, wear gloves & be careful, some of the rims can have sharp edges. I would advise sticking with the pressure washer, your cleaners & maybe an old toothbrush if you want to get the visible bits behind the front facing.
  • After all your rims, tires & wheel-wells are cleaned, you can either use a blower to be sure they are completely dry & all the water is out of the crevices, or you can chamois down the faces of the rims & go in for lunch (or finish washing your vehicle or start working on the interior, etc) while the sun & wind finishes drying your tires for you.
• When your tires (& wheel wells, if you are going to dress them as well) are completely dry, you may apply your tire shine. Adventures in Detailing would prefer you used a water based tire shine as they are more environment friendly, however, for the comparable dollar spent, solvent based tire shines seem to last a bit longer based on our experience so far.
  • either apply your tire shine with an applicator or put down some terry cloths to protect your driveway or grass if you are using a spray on variety (tire shine may be harmful to your grass or plants if sprayed directly on them & can leave crescent shaped marks on asphalt or cement which may be extremely difficult to remove. It can also be slippery on a smooth surface {though a degreaser or soap & water can usually take care of that problem}). You can also spray 2/3^rds of each tire, then roll have a rim & take care of the rest. This is often a good idea anyway, since most people are not very good at getting the bottom inch or so of the tire…especially if it is not properly pressurized.
  • if possible, let it sit for a while for the dressing (& hopefully protectants) to absorb into the tire (I usually work on the rest of the car then, take care of this step last), then take a mostly clean, dry rag (which you will use for nothing else in most cases) & wipe over your tire to make sure any excess tire shine is removed (I usually go over each tire at least three times). If you do not do this there is a good chance you will have little spots in a rainbow pattern down the sides of your car appear within a couple of days. They will be nearly invisible at first, but will be sticky & attract dust & dirt & not be pretty.
    • If you have selected a “wet” or “shiny” looking tire shine & decide you want more of a matte or “no tire shine” look. Spray a clean terry (which again you will probably not be using for any other purpose) with an all-purpose cleaner (or just make sure it’s damp if you do not have an all-purpose cleaner available) & wipe over your tire repeatedly.

I trust this post has answered your questions…but if not, or even better, if it has generated more, please feel free to give us a call & let us know what you are interested in.

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