Dear mid-60s fans of durable car care products,
Back in mid-November, I gave my trusty wagon a wash and wax. Since it was winter, the focus was protection since after all this was the car show "off-season." With the weather being odd here in California, I didn't get around to her spring wash and wax until yesterday. So the tire dressing has been on the tires for 7 months. I didn't drive the car a lot, but she got some service even in the rain. Here is how the tire dressing looked like after 7 months:
It is a little hard to see the effect of the dressing because by now it is a very satin almost flat black. However, if you compare the appearance of the tread to the sidewall, you can see that sidewalls remain protected by the dressing after 7 months. Here is a view of the driver's side front tire:
Once more the effect is difficult to spot, but on this photo there is some reflection of the flash showing that the product has indeed hung on that long. This particular product comes from Griot's Garage:
https://www.griotsgarage.com/product/long-lasting+tire+dressing+16+ounces.do?from=Search&cx=0For decades I've used Megular's Endurance Tire Gel:
http://www.meguiars.com/en/automotive/products/g7516-endurancereg-tire-gel/#sV2YcjEcAdgDobA6.97I did a comparison of these two products. I put Megular's on two tires of our 2000 Buick Century and Griot's product on the other two and I couldn't tell the difference, so I suppose the formulations are basically equivalent. I haven't looked around, but there may be many such products by now.
This is the sort of product can be used on a classic, but it might be more helpful on a daily-driver that gets lots of miles. I washed our 2000 Buick Century at the same time last year and there was still some dressing left on those tires as well. Both cars are garage kept and are relatively low mileage, but getting months out of a tire dressing is certainly a time saver. A car that is kept outside will need more frequent applications, but it might be worth it because these products take some of the hit from solar radiation so your tires should last longer.
While there was still some shine, it had clearly lost its luster. Still, to get that show car look, just reapply!
Here is the same front wheel:
Even if you need to apply these long lasting tire dressings more frequently during the summer car show season, you probably won't have to do is as often as some of the products that look great, but don't last.
FYI . . . . . Edouard
