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An old "tried & true" product from the 70's is Blech White Tire Cleaner in a spray bottle.
Google says its on the Walmart shelf for $16. It works quite well.
Is there any long-term negative impact on the sidewalls?
Bought a new set of BF Goodrich 255 60R 15 white raised letter tires and a few letters(about 10) I cannot get totally white. Even after scrubbing,using mineral spirits,tire bright,etc. No good. Even tried one of those white paint sticks..no good also, Anybody have a trick to get these letters white?
Thanks for any help.
Steve
could be the oils from the tire bleeding into the white letters. With a certain number of letters that way that’s what it sounds like. Where did you buy them?
Disagree with that. Just my opinion though. I had the old BFG's on my 82 Corvette and my Ford Truck years ago. Always brown.. At times I could actually peel the brown film off the tires. Sprayed dry with LA's Finest, scrubbed, sprayed again and then rinsed. This lasted for at least 6 months....Tires stayed black and white letters white.....
Disagree with that. Just my opinion though. I had the old BFG's on my 82 Corvette and my Ford Truck years ago. Always brown.. At times I could actually peel the brown film off the tires. Sprayed dry with LA's Finest, scrubbed, sprayed again and then rinsed. This lasted for at least 6 months....Tires stayed black and white letters white.....
I spent my life in the tire business. The fact that there are only a certain number of them would indicate something different than what you are describing. It’s possible the blue protective coating they put on the letters to protect them during shipping came off some of the letters and the oils from a tire stacked or “laced” on it bled into the white.
This subject has been beat to death over the last several years.
Here is the last and final truth:
BFG has a known and admitted PROBLEM with white letters and bleed through in recent years. So guys who have earlier tires that swear products like Blechewhite cures the problem are correct, IF they have the earlier tires. If you have the LATER tires, white wall cleaners WILL NOT clean them. You can buy and scrub til the cows come home but they will never return to white. The only fix is to return them to BFG for warranty replacement, which I have done 3 times without a problem or cost to me.
Apples and oranges.
This is 100% correct. Goodrich has done nothing for me other than prorate something like 20% off a new set, that will probably do the same thing. Anyone that gets full replacement is lucky. On a side note, while at Bloomington Gold this year, I spoke with a representative of Cooker Tire about these tires and he said that Goodrich has fixed the problem. I think he wanted to sell me some tires!
Last edited by jts90vette; Oct 24, 2021 at 07:09 PM.
We were out cruising today. Between the lot of us we have BFG white letters on every car except one. He has Cooper Cobras and they brown out almost as bad. The tires range in age from two cars with old tires over ten years to two sets purchased this year. There was a set purchased last year and three sets the year before that. Two more sets are roughly 5 years old. This process works on every set. So I completely do not agree that newer BFGs cant be taken care of. I take care of the tires on all of my friends cars for cruising and serious car shows. I posted this on one of the earlier posts.
"I have 5 sets of BFGs with white letters. Age varies from 18 years to 8 months. We drive our cars a lot during the summer and have a couple of them at cruise ins or shows almost every weekend. This problem is not new, Eagle STs did it too. Easy to keep it from happening. A pain, but doable to get rid of. This seems to crop up the most over the winter hibernation. So I do a 409 touch up of my tires a couple times a winter which seems to stop it. Some Bleche White can help if you let them go too long but SOS pads are the key. The brown comes out when they don't see a brush. Really bad with "no touch spray cleaners"
In the spring, I clean them well with a brush when washing the car. Then a good scrub with SOS pad. I hit them with a brush again to get all the blue goo out of everywhere. I use Meguiars Endurance gel ( the stuff that smells like grapes) I apply the gel and then take a rag and remove all excess to get rid of the heavy shine. I do this same thing in August for the biggest car show of the summer. Every time I wash the car I do the tires with a brush and soap. When not washing the car (California duster and Meguiars gold class detailer) I spray a rag with 409 and clean the tires. In the pictures below, the black car with the Hurricanes haven't had anything but 409 touch ups since May. The tire on the maroon car I just took was hit with gel again a couple of weeks ago because I was showing someone how to do it. The Maroon car in front of the caboose was from a couple of years ago. Same tire bought in 2017.
I've done this exact process on my tires for 25 years or so. Used to use Turtle Wax Black Chrome but finally ran out of my stash a couple of years ago. Tried about 40 or so products before settling on the Endurance gel. My cars see 100 yards of gravel every time they leave my house and come home. Yes, I get stuck doing the tires on all my friends cars also. All these cars are mine except the bottom two. The 20 year old tires on the Trans Am were bad. Did them quite a few times over the course of the summer to get them to look nice. I did ask the guy with the silver ann car if I could clean his tires but I think I bugged him. Dirty tires on a nice car drives me nuts!
