Dressing Questions (maybe for Bud/ Ron)

Hi Bud & Ron,

You guys come from a car-care manufacturing background so maybe you can answer this.

If I was going to design a good tire dressing, I would add black pigment into it. How come you never see this in tire dressings, especially solvent-based ones.

Also, how come the water-based dressings are white. I would prefer a clear or transluscent one. Is that just the colour of the siloxane?

What do you guys reckon?

Thanks.

Check out Dodo Juice Tyromania dressing. It's basically a matte looking dye that washes off *tires*. I spilled the tin on my driveway several months ago and it's still there after using just about every chemical in my arsenal including muratic acid to remove it.

Understand that a "dressing" is just that.
Dressings are like a pair of pants or a shirt, not forever, they come off.
Two basic resins used for "dressings", a dimethal silicone oil/fluid or a siloxane resin.
Some dimethal oils are either clear or have a yellow/tan tint in concentrate.
Most siloxanes are a white color when in concentrate. When water and emulsifiers are added, the white color still shows while moist.
When the water carrier evaporates, one is left with a clear dressing on the object.
Dimethals are normally very "greasy", lubricating, which is why they are used in many lubricating products, oils, etc and in some polishes, waxes, sealants. They aid in the carrying of the components to the surface, they add some gloss and ease of removal of the indicators.
(this is a quick primer on these products and are not intended to cover all uses or charatrisics of the two)
Which ever of these two are used for the base of the dressing, they leave behind a very, very small amount on the surface that is being treated.
One resists corrosive elements and once cured, if the surface applied to is not contaminated with other chemicals, will give some longivity.
That is the siloxane.
The silicone leaves a fairly water resistant, short term suface, however evaporates when exposed to heat.
As far as adding a colorant, such as a black pigment to either, it would drive up the price and actually not be worth the expense.
This is due to the nature of the water borne resins and the very thin temporary coating they leave behind.
The pigment would gone in a short time.
Another issue is the very composition of the side wall of a tire, and how the UV anti-oxidant waxes, sulfur, etc that are in them, are made to migrate to the outer surface as the tire is driven and the resulting heat from flexing detach most dressings or even more pemanent coatings applied to them.
An example of the nature of the silicone type dressings is the "slinging" off that results when the vehicle is driven and the heat created.
The oils and waxes mix with the black pigment and sulfur of the sidewall and impregnate the paint surfaces to which they have been slung onto.
That's a short one for your questions, hope it gives you some idea of an answer to your questions.

Hi Ron,

That makes sense to me.

It just seemed like a natural progression of what dressing is trying to achieve in its application. It looks like it has all been thought of before.

Cheers for the response.

Pro-Techt, thanks for the input. When you say Tyromania washes off tires, do you mean its a colour wash? I heard it wasn't a great product for the price - maybe better for car owners rather than in a workshop.

Thanks again

Profile not all water-based dressings are white.
Have you tried AM cool blue?good stuff...

Haven't tried it. But its not really the actual colour....I have one that is yellow as well!! I was thinking of certain times when it would be more helpful to have a clear liquid.

Next time my AM rep is in, I will check out the Cool Blue but I have a few siloxane dressings. CarPro PERL is the best I have used so far. You can dilute up to 5:1 Water to Dressing depending on where you need to use it. Very high concentration of siloxane in it.

I meant that it's not durable on tires, but has a staining effect almost like a dye on porous parts. Not a good product in any environment in my opinion. Especially in a shop environment.

Shortly before I retired, a distributor sent us a sample of the AutoMagic gel, the blue dyed one.
We tested it and found it did just as the company said it would.
Gave a nice, quick sort of satin gloss, with no drip, etc.
Didn't seem to last all that long, but would be one that a dealer or such would find attractive to use.
We noticed that when it was on a vehicle that was left setting, seemed to last about a week or longer.
When applied to a vehicle that was driven daily, was pretty much gone in a couple of days or less, depending on the heat of the day.
The first summer I was here at where I retired, and putting away a bunch of chemicals I had moved with me, ran onto a taco bottle of the product.
Thought I would give it a shot, just to see if what I had found out about it earlier was correct..
Pretty much the same results.
I did recoat the tires every couple of days to keep the gloss up, but stopped after a few times when I noticed it was "building a deposit" of gunk on the tires, drawing more and more road dust and dirt to the tires.
Was pretty tough to get all of it off the tires, but had to be done, as the Premuim Dressing I normally use (our siloxane dressing) would not attach to AutoMagic product dressed tires.
Grumpy