new tire issue

hello all i recently was given a set of nitto tires for my truck. any way they have about 10k on them. i did my normal process and scrubbed them with zep citrus 3.1 and applied opti bond 1.1 in a sprayer let sit for 1-2 hours and wipeoff the excess. to my surprise all the opti bond wiped off the tire looked just as it did when i scrubbed them with apc. so the next day i scrubbed with grime reaper and applied opti bond again this time full strength and let sit about 2 hours and went back and wiped and it seemed to be good. drove about 5 miles and all the opti bond slung off.

its like its not absorbing in the tire like normal the tires almost feel smooth like plastic or something. been using optibond 1.5 years with no issues like this, and this is my 2nd set of these tires. any sugestions?

 

Its probably the mold release they do on tires now. If takes some times for it to wear off and cleaning it off would take forever, but try ZEP citrus straight.

 

If the above does not work, you can try Tide.

 

Tide? Laundry detergent. How did you find out that tip?

 

LOL Tide has been around and used for tires for years, well before the term APC. We used it on the whitewalls and blackwalls when I was a kid, also on the floormats. Just sprinkle the powder on the floor brush and go to to town. My dad used to have tire paint....YES Tire PAINT, they would paint the tires black in the 60's - 70's there were no tire products then. Also used anti-freeze to dress the rubber tires, again there were no products available, these guys were the hard core detailers of the day.

Now we have 100's of manufactures

 

For the OP Griot's Garage has a Rubber Prep product that works well in removing silicones, grease, grim from the rubber, to be used before dressing.

 

zEP purple works great on removing silicone dressing. so try that if you didnt already. great to use to clean tires as well

 

wat dilution do you use?

 

4:1 works pretty good

 

Cool, nice to learn some detailing history

 

I'll vouch for the mold release. That stuff is hell to remove. I spent the day cleaning tires and wheels with a mix of Westleys and Zep purple (straight) followed by steam from my VX. I'm sure the tires and wheels are clean and some of the "release" was removed but not all. I'll have to go with time and repeated care before it's all gone. The steam got rid of some stain in the rims though and I'm happy I tried that.