Little Nuggets For Tyre Kickers

The Age

Wednesday April 13, 2005

Cameron McGavin

Are your car's tyres looking a bit worse for wear? Cameron McGavin investigates some staple rubber-beautifying options.

SUPER CARE TYRE BLACK,

$2.50

TYRE black paint is cheap, the end result is glossy black tyres and one can stretches to what can only be hundreds of tyres (our testing barely touched the paint's surface). But painting the tyre is messy and time-consuming. Ideally, you'll use two brushes: a big one to cover the main part of the tyre and a smaller one for detail. And because paint is difficult to remove from bodywork, it's vital to let the product dry before driving off.

Rating: (three stars)

Likes: Cheap, one can lasts a long time, dries to a glossy finish.

Dislikes: Messy and time consuming, brushes needed, easy to stain the wheel.

Supplied by Super Cheap Auto

MEGUIAR'S HOT SHINE TIRE SPRAY, $13.99

HOT Shine goes a long way towards justify-ing its price. Particularly handy is the adjustable sprayer, which alters the stream width to suit low-profile, normal or 4WD/truck tyres. Where other sprays tend to end up on the bodywork, the Meguiar's stayed on its intended path. It sprays on glossy, with minimal surface runs, and quickly dries to a deep black sheen that resists water and showed no ill signs after several hundred kilometres.

Rating: (four and a half stars)

Likes: Handy adjustable sprayer, quick-drying sheen looks good and lasts well, one can treats up to 50 tyres.

Dislikes: Not cheap.

Supplied by Super Cheap Auto

FORMULA 1 BLACK GOLD TIRE SHINE, $17.99

BLACK Gold uses a pump trigger but the extra finger effort is barely noticed. It takes just a few squeezes to effectively coat the tyre, and plenty of bodywork too, with the wide spray. Less gooey than the Meguiar's, it's prone to running down on to the wheel, so you might want to keep a rag handy. It's not the fastest drying, either, but the end result is a water-resistant gloss that looks good and stands up well to extended driving. Price is Black Gold's biggest shortcoming, but with 650-millilitres in the bottle it will certainly go the distance.

Rating: (four stars)

Likes: Sprays on glossy, dries to a glossy black finish, one bottle goes a long way.

Dislikes: Expensive, takes a while to dry, easy to spray onto wheels and bodywork.

Supplied by Super Cheap Auto

ARMOR ALL TYRE FOAM, $9.99

ANOTHER quality product that sprays on quickly and easily, Armor All's main distinction is that it dispenses a foam that cleans the tyre rather than a high-sheen liquid. This is another product that's easy to overspray onto the body-work. The foam takes some time to do its thing, but the result is excellent, even though it's less glossy than most. If that's your kind of thing, Armor All recom-mends its Extreme Tyre Shine. With up to 35 applications per $10 can, it's also very good value.

Rating: (four stars)

Likes: Good value, foam cleans tyre and leaves a nice finish.

Dislikes: Takes a while to dry, easy to spray onto wheels and bodywork, not as glossy as some.

Supplied by Autobarn

BLACK JACK TYRE SHINE, $2.20

AVAILABLE at most car-wash vending machines, Black Jack is a single-use, disposable solution to the problem of unsightly rubber and works quite well. The package contains a sponge applicator soaked in a silicon-based liquid, which you simply wipe evenly across the tyre. The instructions recommend you do the first three tyres and return to the first two to pick up excess fluid for the fourth - there's a rubber glove included so you can keep your hands clean. It dries quickly to a glossy water-resistant finish that lasts, and there's no overspray.

Rating: (three stars)

Likes: Dries to a glossy finish, no overspray, glove cuts down on mess.

Dislikes: Fiddly and time-consuming, average value.

© 2005 The Age

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