Keeping tire lettering white

I recently ran across an article about keeping your white letters white so I'll share some of the content in paraphrase form.


Most tires, after a few years of age, start to fade or yellow. Tires that are used every day tend to pick up raod grime and look dingy and dirty. There are a few steps you can take to whiten them. So here are some tips about different things to use and what they do to the rubber.

• -Whitening by a strong bleach will fade the black rubber on the rest of the tire, don't use it.   
  
• -Degreasers (greased lightning, etc) work  well but after many times of use it will start to dry rot the rubber because it is a chemical that works  against petroleum. **
  
• -Laquer thinner is by far the best at whitening, but it must be applied only to the letters themselves and without scrubbing.**
  
• -Mineral spirits works with no major side effects to the rubber.
  
• -Bar soap is a good thing to use, but requires a lot of scrubbing. **
  
• -Tire bleach (bleche white, tire clean, etc) is great at cleaning the tire, but not whitening the letters.
  
• -Shoe cleaner/glass cleaner or anything with mild amounts of ammonia work very well.**
  
• -Never use Varsol.

**Care should be taken around aluminum and alloy wheels and all painted rims.

quote:

ORIGINAL: EuroGoldLS-Tire bleach (bleche white, tire clean, etc) is great at cleaning the tire, but not whitening the letters.

 
I've used Westley's Bleche-Wite for years and found it does very good at both cleaning the tires and white letters.  But then I don't let them get that grungy. 

Neither do I, but I wash workvans too...

i just use the papertowel i cleaned my windows with and it works great- little bit of window cleaner does a great job

I know duplicolor makes a paint marker so you can paint your letters white, yellow, or red

You won't get good results from those. They make a mess if you are not careful.

Is it very permanent?

I used them on the old set of goodyears I had. The right rear had some curb scarring, so I went over it with the pen. It wroked really good, but it was splotchy and I put it on too thick in places, it ran when the water hit it and then stained the whole tire a grayish color. The lettering stayed white a long time though.