Silly Stupid White Wall Letter Question

[Daveh]

Can anyone tell me why the raised white letters on my tires that I put on the Challenger 4 years ago that has never been driven are really dirty.  Very brown/black and the back tires are even worse.  I spend an hour trying different things yesterday to clean them.  I eventually got them back to 95% but I'm perplexed how they got so bad.  Anyone have any thoughts?   

[js27]

Common Problem especially with BF Goodridge.
JS27

[Filthy Filbert]

I can only guess as to why it happens.  (chemicals and compounds leaching/off-gassing out of the rubber?)

I always cleaned them with Westley's Bleach White

https://www.amazon.com/Westleys-800002224-Blech-Wite-Tire-Cleaner/dp/B016W1IRSC


Wet the tire down with garden hose.   spray this on the tire.  use a stiff bristle brush to scrub the entire tire, not just the white. Rinse off with the hose water.

Leaves tires with a black, satin sheen and stark white letters/whitewall.    no gloss, no drippy looking "wet look"  nice, clean, dry, satin look.   

[Daveh]

You did all of that, Comet with a wire brush. I used a little of everything what ended up working the best was a little 1000 grit wet sand paper.  I've also used SOS pads but didn't have any at the time. 

[Racer57]

I tried everything possible to clean mine and nothing worked. Finally got disgusted enough that I used a Makita grinder figuring that if i screwed them up, I would just reverse the tires. Its STILL didn't help. Its not on the surface, but the rubber itself.   

[70/6chall]

I scrub my tires with a good degreaser and tire brush during the time I wash the car. Then I lightly scrub the letters with SOS pads dry the tires completely then apply 303 on the whole tire including the letters. Looks real nice for 20 year old Kelly tires on a car that's kept out in the driveway.

[greentween]

BFG radial TA's are "raised brown wall" letters. I know they sell them as white - I was tricked too. Only white when new and revert back to brown while sitting in the garage. Then never can clean them back up to white.

[Daveh]

Mine turned out well, they were really brown/black.  It's weird how the rear (larger) tires get darker than the front (smaller) tires.  I should have taken a before pic.   

[headejm]

I tried everything possible to clean mine and nothing worked. Finally got disgusted enough that I used a Makita grinder figuring that if i screwed them up, I would just reverse the tires. Its STILL didn't help. Its not on the surface, but the rubber itself.   

Very frustrating for me too! Radial T/As that I couldn't even get the blue protective covering off the letters after they sat for about 2 years while I waited to finish my car. Tried everything but nothing really worked. Ended up putting the softest scotch brite pad on my die grinder and applying the blue paste from a wet SOS pad. You have to be careful or you will burn the letters.

Side note: I was aware of the brown letter problem when I bought the TAs. So I called Coker customer service to find out if they had corrected it. They told me they made a change to the tire mold and the well-known problem was gone. Well...not so. 

[scf100]

If you have the Brown BF Goodrich white letter tires and have bought them in last 2 years"".

Call the vendor you bought from and tell them you want them replaced as Coker knows they had a bad batch

Insist the vendor contact Coker......if you bought from Coker process should be easier....

I had mine replaced at no charge last year and the tires were over a year old.

I bought mine from Summit.....Summit customer service had to contact Coker customer service took a week but got it done

They shipped new tires at no charge and sent shipping labels for me to send bad ones back at no charge.

NOTHING would get the letters white

[chargerdon]

I scrub my tires with a good degreaser and tire brush during the time I wash the car. Then I lightly scrub the letters with SOS pads dry the tires completely then apply 303 on the whole tire including the letters. Looks real nice for 20 year old Kelly tires on a car that's kept out in the driveway.

I sure hope you dont drive the car with 20 year old tires !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Get rid of them if you value your life !!   I dont care if there are no signs of dry rotting or not.   I had 21 year old BF Goodrich tires on my 66 Charger, and no signs of dry rot, yet both of them blew out while driving !!!   

[dodj]

I scrub my tires with a good degreaser and tire brush during the time I wash the car. Then I lightly scrub the letters with SOS pads dry the tires completely then apply 303 on the whole tire including the letters. Looks real nice for 20 year old Kelly tires on a car that's kept out in the driveway.

I sure hope you dont drive the car with 20 year old tires !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Get rid of them if you value your life !!   I dont care if there are no signs of dry rotting or not.   I had 21 year old BF Goodrich tires on my 66 Charger, and no signs of dry rot, yet both of them blew out while driving !!!

They held your car off the ground for 20 years. Give them a rest. Think about a new set of boots!

[1973Cuda]

I use acetone on mine and it seems to work pretty well...almost back to original white.

[MoparLeo]

Most people are unaware of the process of making a w/w or rwl tire and why they don't do it on modern tires.
A w/w or rwl tire is made up of 2 additional rubber layers on top of the basic tire carcass.
First a fairly thin layer of white rubber is laid around the entire tire, 2-3" wide. Then a very thin layer of black rubber is molded over the entire sidewall.
Now the entire tire is black. On a w/w they "buff" off whatever design or width of white rubber that they want to show.
Some times thin and wide stripes, sometimes just on wide white strip.
On a rwl tire just the tops of the letters are buffed off.
Chemicals do leach through whether it is a solid w/w or a rwl tire since they are made the same. Products like "Bleech White" were on the market decades before there was such a thing as rwl.
Racing tires have always just used a painted on letters since the side wall flexes so much and flexing generates heat.
The rwl on passenger tires was always just to emulate a real racing tire even though racing tires were never made that way.

[Mr Lee]

I scrub my tires with a good degreaser and tire brush during the time I wash the car. Then I lightly scrub the letters with SOS pads dry the tires completely then apply 303 on the whole tire including the letters. Looks real nice for 20 year old Kelly tires on a car that's kept out in the driveway.

I also will recommend that you toss those tires out!   I watched my friend wreck his motorcycle right in front of me, with 10 yr old tires on.  Bike went right out from under him around a turn going 10 - 15 mph. He wasn't even pushing it.  Tires dry out!  They really do, even when they look fine. 

And for the white letters, try some lacquer thinner on the letters? 


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