Will some tire cleaner/foams/dressings dry rot your tires?

[kzyman13]

My father-in-law and brother-in-law started using tire foam to dress their tires. They both have different brands of tires but recently they both noticed there are cracks on the outside. Both sets of tires are less than 2 years old.

Caused by the products? or no. Are all meguiars products & cleaners, etc... tested for causing dry rot?

The tire foam they were using were not from meguiars & I believe were some low budget brand tire foam.

Just curious if anyone had knowledge of this. I researched the web a little but really couldn't come to any conclusion. I figured there was no better place to ask than this forum!

[Funkster]

Re: Will some tire cleaner/foams/dressings dry rot your tires?

What kind of cleaners were being used? I would imagine some of the harsher cleaners do dry up the rubber and could cause tire cracking.

[kzyman13]

Re: Will some tire cleaner/foams/dressings dry rot your tires?

Im not exactly sure what brand. They were off-brand tire foams for dressing tires.

[Funkster]

Re: Will some tire cleaner/foams/dressings dry rot your tires?

As far as dressing goes I would imagine that not being the culprit although I am sure it could be. It could just be dry heat. Constant use of bleach or something of that nature would damage the tires.

[Marc08EX]

Re: Will some tire cleaner/foams/dressings dry rot your tires?

What kind of cleaners were being used? I would imagine some of the harsher cleaners do dry up the rubber and could cause tire cracking.

Will APC+ be a harsh cleaner that can cause dry rotting the tires?

[Funkster]

Re: Will some tire cleaner/foams/dressings dry rot your tires?

Will APC+ be a harsh cleaner that can cause dry rotting the tires?

Not in any examples I have seen. APC+ is a good product for cleaning tires with. Top it off with some Hyper Dressing and you are good to go.

[Megafast13]

Re: Will some tire cleaner/foams/dressings dry rot your tires?

I have used many different wheel and tire shines in the past and they have rusted out the actual Mag/caliper and such... Not the actual tires though, but I know what your talking about.

[acsuppa]

Re: Will some tire cleaner/foams/dressings dry rot your tires?

I was going to say that I've never heard of a dressing drying out tires but I've heard that ArmorAll ( Jeez, I hate even saying that name) has been known to dry out dashes and vinyl.

[Malo83]

Re: Will some tire cleaner/foams/dressings dry rot your tires?

I was going to say that I've never heard of a dressing drying out tires but I've heard that ArmorAll ( Jeez, I hate even saying that name) has been known to dry out dashes and vinyl.

I've been using ArmorAll for the last 30 yrs with no problems on all my vehicles the dash on my 83 Silverado still looks as new as the day I bought it in 83

[acsuppa]

Re: Will some tire cleaner/foams/dressings dry rot your tires?

I've been using ArmorAll for the last 30 yrs with no problems on all my vehicles the dash on my 83 Silverado still looks as new as the day I bought it in 83

Yeah. I used to use it way back and to be completely honest, the only thing I hated about it was the high shine and plastic look it gave everything. I probably only used it for a year or two and found Meguiar's. About 18 years later, I'm still hooked on Meguiar's. I hope you didn't take offense to what I said about ArmorAll. I just heard people say that it dries stuff out. Who knows.

[VoicesInMyHead]

Re: Will some tire cleaner/foams/dressings dry rot your tires?

My guess would be outdated and/or under inflated tires. It's amazing how tire stores sell severely old tires. Story Here - worth watching.

But, it's just a guess since we don't know the history of the tire.

[RacerX88]

Re: Will some tire cleaner/foams/dressings dry rot your tires?

My guess would be outdated and/or under inflated tires. It's amazing how tire stores sell severely old tires. Story Here - worth watching.

But, it's just a guess wince we don't know the history of the tire.

Geez! Like cattle being led to slaughter! I'm glad I know now!

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Will some tire cleaner/foams/dressings dry rot your tires?

Tires are meant to be used. The antiozonants in them migrate to the surface when in use and help prevent them from cracking due to sun exposure, etc. In the RV industry there are recommendations for changing tires after a certain time frame, regardless of mileage, since the lack of use prevents the antiozonants from migrating and doing their job. Cracking can and will occur to an untreated tire that basically sits out in the sun for an extended period of time without being "used". It is highly doubtful than any tire dressing manufacturer would add any ingredient that would promote drying of the rubber - that would be downright stupid. But applying virtually any dressing to a tire that has even the initial stages of cracking may well make the cracking more apparent. There is a huge difference between "revealing" a condition and "causing" it.

As for Armor All and cracked dashboards. Consider the lower quality materials used in automotive interiors back in the 1970s, and then consider that before AA came along, there really wasn't anything on the market specifically geared to dash dressing. Now look at what happens to a dashboard over time: it gets really hot and then cools down, meaning it expands and contracts. In northern locales the dash material also gets darn cold in the winter months, furthering the whole expand/contract cycle. Those cheaper vinyls could only take so much of this before they became brittle with age and stress. Along comes AA and people start spraying it onto these brittle, dried out dashboards. The vinyl swells but has lost elasticity over time. CRACK. You could have put almost anything on that dash and it was going to let go. The problem for AA was that nothing else really existed, so nothing else ever took the blame. 30 years later AA is known as the junk that cracks your dashboard.

[acsuppa]

Re: Will some tire cleaner/foams/dressings dry rot your tires?

My guess would be outdated and/or under inflated tires. It's amazing how tire stores sell severely old tires. Story Here - worth watching.

But, it's just a guess since we don't know the history of the tire.

A guy at work sent that to me a few weeks ago, I forgot to share it with you guys. Anyway, after watching the video, I checked all of our tires. Luckily ours are all good. It's crazy that they know there is a potential problem but they just ignore it to make money.

[acsuppa]

Re: Will some tire cleaner/foams/dressings dry rot your tires?

Tires are meant to be used. The antiozonants in them migrate to the surface when in use and help prevent them from cracking due to sun exposure, etc. In the RV industry there are recommendations for changing tires after a certain time frame, regardless of mileage, since the lack of use prevents the antiozonants from migrating and doing their job. Cracking can and will occur to an untreated tire that basically sits out in the sun for an extended period of time without being "used". It is highly doubtful than any tire dressing manufacturer would add any ingredient that would promote drying of the rubber - that would be downright stupid. But applying virtually any dressing to a tire that has even the initial stages of cracking may well make the cracking more apparent. There is a huge difference between "revealing" a condition and "causing" it.

As for Armor All and cracked dashboards. Consider the lower quality materials used in automotive interiors back in the 1970s, and then consider that before AA came along, there really wasn't anything on the market specifically geared to dash dressing. Now look at what happens to a dashboard over time: it gets really hot and then cools down, meaning it expands and contracts. In northern locales the dash material also gets darn cold in the winter months, furthering the whole expand/contract cycle. Those cheaper vinyls could only take so much of this before they became brittle with age and stress. Along comes AA and people start spraying it onto these brittle, dried out dashboards. The vinyl swells but has lost elasticity over time. CRACK. You could have put almost anything on that dash and it was going to let go. The problem for AA was that nothing else really existed, so nothing else ever took the blame. 30 years later AA is known as the junk that cracks your dashboard.