I use Poorboy's World Bold 'n Bright. It leaves a nice black finish that isn't greasy or too shiny.

The things you've heard about dressings deteriorating the tire are referring to silicone dressings. Water-based dressings won't harm your tires, and as others have stated, many contain chemicals that actually help keep your rubber healthy.

Here's a great article if you want to know more:
http://www.detailedimage.com/Ask-a-P...ne-your-tires/

 

I've heard good things about the Zaino tire dressing, but haven't tried it yet. I've also heard that 303 works well so I'm going to give it a shot. It works on everything else so I don't see why it wouldn't do the same on tires.

I hate the shiny 'wet look' so I would only use something that has a satin finish with UV protectant and doesn't sling.

 

IMO it's most important to use Gel type tire shine product.

I find ArmorAll Extreme Tire Shine Gel to be a very good product.
Applies nicely, stays on for quite some time

 

+1000

Quit using it for a while and have gone back to it. Also, it smells good with no sling

 

I have always been so torn on shine or not..

 

I tried 303 the other day and it looked good. It will give you more of a matte/satin finish which is what I prefer.

 

I'm a fan of the real shiney wet tire look

 

I recently started using Meguiars Endurance Gel as well and apply with a tire sponge applicator. I hate the overdone wet look, I just like that mild matte finish and hate stuff slinging up. I also generally only use it for car shows or big car meets. I don't use it all the time.

 

Personally, I've seen the sidewall look less deteriorated on tires that had tire shine on them a lot vs ones that were just left 'dry' all the time.

Granted, just because a tire looks good may or may not necessarily mean much, but hey, whatever.

 

Even if the tires deteriorated very slightly, you would probably get new tires before anything would happen anyway

Just shine those B's and make your car look sexy

 

btw OP as far as tires deteriorating if tire shine applied............I have two shined up spare tires sitting in my garage for quite some time now, and they have not turned in to rubber dust or anything.........they still there and no cracks on them.

I think tire shine actually keeps them from drying out and cracking.

 

Meguiars FTW

 

Well I heard a professional on one of those speed network shows say that tires come factory with a protectant on them and when you apply tire shine oyu are wiping off the factory protectant. But yes you will probably eat through the tires first. But also I had a friend use that shiny stuff almost everyday and once I accidentally bumped one of the tires with shorts on and my whole calf was black, but then I noticed how soft or even weird the tire felt, so I poked it with a stick and it took a while for the little dent left by the stick to "pop" back out of the rubber, it was kinda weird. The rubber soaks up a lot of the shine products and about 99.9% of all those products have some type of petroleum product in them which eats rubber away, over time yes.

 

^ That just means your friend never cleans his tires and just keeps applying the tire shine over all the dirt lol. I think applying it everyday is a little overkill.... I apply my tire shine everytime i wash my car (once a week), and always clean the tires before applying it. Tire shine on top of dirty, grimey tires looks crappy IMO.

 

Thats like being torn between having a dirty car or a clean car.... Gloss the tires.. it looks like the car is a lot cleaner when the tires shine.