white walls
 

I bought an old Pontiac last fall with white walls. The tires are almost new and I like the white walls. My problem is that I can't clean them. I tried Westley's Bleach White and Jay Leno's cleaners. I also tried every cleaner my wife had. Nothing did anything. I saw online that you can lightly sand them. All that did was gum up my sand paper. Any suggestions? I thought about white wall paint but all the reviews said it doesn't work. It just cracks and falls off.

Mr Clean’s Magic Eraser is supposed to be the hot ticket for cleaning whitewalls.

I have yet to try it but I will soon, I have 2 vehicles with wide whites.

They probably have the same problem that's been the problem with raised white letter tires for the last few years. There are many, many posts about this on the forums. https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...+turning+brown
Almost appears like oil stains leeching from the inside out. I gave up on RWL tires because of it.
On the other hand, if you are not having that same problem, there are lots of suggestions posted in the thread above.
Since all this came up a couple of years ago, I've noticed that even the black part of tires are turning brown nowadays if they aren't freshly cleaned and treated with your favorite tire dressing. Tire dressing will mask it on the the black parts but not on the white.

White
 

I've actually used Sharpie-brand white paint marker for RWL correction. Looks a little too white but is easily touched up. I haven't tried a full white wall stripe but I think it could work.

years ago I had old red line tires that looked brown. They would not clean up. I took them off one winter and first cleaned them with Dawn and water. then clean them twice each with brake clean. I used a colored(blue) electric tape to go around the tire on both sides of the red line. Masked the rest of the wheel and tire. Sprayed a few coats of red vinyl paint. They turned out great and lasted 6 years before getting new tires. Of course ,I do not know if it would have held up long if exposed to every day driving.

In the old days I'd use Ajax or Comet cleaning powder and a scrub brush to clean whitewalls, if that won't clean them I don't know what else would work any better. I think what Greg said above is probably the issue here. There are places selling white wall tire paint, just do a search online (although I have no experience with any of them.)

I had that issue with some wide whitewall tires on a 36 Ford years ago. We tried everything, with no luck. We finally fixed the problem by painting the whitewalls with white tennis shoe paint. We taped off the whitewalls and lightly fogged the paint on and just evenly covered them. It stayed on with no trouble . Still looked good when we sold the car a few years later.

After reading what was on the link this may be a problem that I can't fix. I will try a couple of the suggestions and if that doesn't work I'll try some kind of flexible paint. If all else fails I'll have to mount the tires with the white wall inside.

That tennis shoe paint sounds like a good idea. It would have to be pretty flexible I would think.

Brillo pad

What pop used and I followed suit. How I clean the wide white wall's on my motorcycle. They come out looking like new. If this doesnt work nothing will! I also use the white paint pen on the RWL of my T/A tires. They tend to fade after a season. I usually do it once a summer.

The problem is how the radial WSW tires are made. The black rubber underneath the WSW leaches oils and stains the white. Some cleaning can help but it will come back. You can check out other car web sites. It is a huge problem with concours judging of Corvettes for instance. Diamond Back Tires places a barrier between the black and the white to prevent this. I have a set on one of my cars and have perfect bright white WSWs for three years now. I also have not had a problem with any bias-ply WSW tires. right now I have an 8-year old set from from Coker. Perfectly white. But radials WSW tires from Uniroyal and BFG have turned brownish. After too many sets of those, I have learned my lesson: Diamond Back for radial WSW, and Coker for bias-ply WSW.

Doesn't work

I have a set of Cooper Cobra RWL's on my 65 LeMans, they don't have the "browning" issue either! They are 3 years old.
James Q

I have used white walls for years and in the past there was no problem. These must be the new and improved tires that are recommended to be changed every 4 years. I'm old and never had problems with old stuff. Everything now days sucks.

You got lucky. I had an older set of Cooper Cobras and they were fine. The next set I bought, circa 2017, turned brown before I ever drove on them...and that was the least of their problems! Tread separated on one, another blew the sidewall out and they never did balance correctly. VERY bumpy ride at 65mph..I mean, splash water out of a bottle bumpy...blurry rearview mirror bumpy... I'll never buy another set of Coopers and I was a fan of them.

I've been saying since this started, people who haven't experienced it will say, 'Ajax', 'Bleche White', 'Brillo Pad', etc.... but it's not something ON the tires, it's IN the tires.

ive dealt with the white letter issue a few times on BFG tires & the last set they replaced for me were much better but still turn brown after sitting for a couple months. i have found that cleaning them after sitting in direct sunlight for awhile helps a lot, the sun/heat must release the brown crap better & lets wesleys bleech white or other cleaner work much better. read about cleaning after sitting in the sun on another forum where a member was having the same problems.

also found a couple products that are supposed to deal with this issue on RWL or white walls. this one is supposed to fix the leeching of teh UV chemical that is what causes them to turn brown, i spoke to the owner & he guarantees the product will work or money back. i have yet to try it becuuse the cleaning process i mentioned has helped a lot & is acceptable for now but for the price this stuff looks like its worth a try.

http://lasteffortgarage.com/wax.html