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I can see that you guys aren't from the South! Down here, we use Greased Lighting. It's the only cleaner that I use, period. I spray it on the tires and that brown stuff just starts coming off, even if the tire appear to be pretty clean. I use a mild bristle brush and Comet on the white lettering. They are truly black and don't need anything else.
You can find it at Lowes, Sam's Club, Wal-mart, Target, etc.
You do have to use a brush to clean the tires, but the instant you spray it on the tires you will see the dirt start coming off. I only use Comet on the white lettering. Lowes sells a "Commercial" grade of Greased Lightning that is really strong... be careful if you use that grade.
i use bleach white with a scrub brush and they look brand new. my trick that i learned from a car detialer, is to have a bucket of water,start out with the tire dry spray your tire with bleach white and then dip your brush in the bucket of water and start to scrub,i usually go to the bucket 2 or 3 times on each tire then spray off and don't let it dry on. may take a couple of time to get the nack of it but when you do it is cake walk.
I use Meguiar's Gold Class car wash and scrub the tires with a nylon brush. Afterwards, I use Meguiar's Long Lasting Tire Shine (purple goop) to protect the sidewalls from drying out in the sun (and it shines too).
IIRC the brown on the tires is a byproduct of either the tire making process or the rubber aging. Tires will brown differently due to the varying compositions and manufacturing processes...
i always use the advance brand wheel and tire cleaner. most of the time you can just spray it on and rinse all the brown stuff off without even scrubbing it. they almost always have it on sell buy one get one free too. for white walls i just mix some lye and water and it gets them looking brand new.
I spent a few hours today and got nearly figured out. The bad news is it took an hour to do the top half of three tires, so I expect the bottom half (the top half once I roll forward a few feet) will take just over an hour not counting any work to the tread.
Start with a couple of clean rags, a bottle of bleech white and a dollar store tooth brush. I worked on about 3 lugs at a time, sprayed them down, and scrubbed them the tooth brush. Before the bleech white dried, I wiped and scrubbed the area with the rag. Then I wiped the goofy side biters and the side wall down. I blackened my rag doing half of the four tires.