# Tuf Shine Tire Apperance Kit (permanent tyre shine)



## johnnyguitar (Mar 24, 2010)

*WHAT IS IT?*

*Tuf Shine Tire Appearance Kit - aka Permanent Tyre Shine

WHAT DOES IT BRING TO THE TABLE?*

"_This revolutionary tire dressing will outperform any other tire dressing you have ever used. The water-based formula contains NO silicones or oils, and provides a shine that will last for several months. TUF SHINE Tire Clearcoat dries to the touch in just seconds and will not crack. If you are tired of using "run of the mill" tire dressings that leave an oily, sticky residue and attracts dust and dirt, then this is the product for you._"

*WHAT AM I TESTING IT ON?*

Tyres, specifically the Dunlop Sport Maxx on my Octavia
*
WHAT DO I THINK OF IT?*

It's an interesting idea and an interesting product. 
I am an advocate of using one product to cover many jobs and when it comes to dressings and cleaners, I like APCs and dressings that can be used on tyres, trim and rubbers. The idea of a kit that is *specifically* for your tyres kind of goes against my own ethos of product use, but actually, I think this is quite a worthwhile kit.

So what do you get then?


IMG_0948 by jonnyguitar, on Flickr

A bottle of tyre cleaner, a bottle of clearcoat tyre dressing, an applicator, a scrubbing brush and a pair of nitrile gloves in a retail pack.
There is a massive load of blurb on this at tufshine.com, far too much to go into detail here, but suffice to say there is a lot of fairly specific instructions with this stuff. The cleaner needs to be sprayed onto the tyres and left for 30 - 60 seconds, dip the brush in a bucket of water and scrub the stuff into the tyre. Lather, rinse, repeat until the suds are white - kind of like this:


IMG_0953 by jonnyguitar, on Flickr

Rinse it off and let it dry.

The tyre photos are kind of tricky due to them being VERY black against a light coloured, silver wheel, so I don't have a before, but you know what a clean tyre looks like.

Squirt the clearcoat onto the app sponge


IMG_0958 by jonnyguitar, on Flickr

Rub it onto the tyre - at this point, the sponge is putting air bubbles into the dressing as it goes onto the tyre and I really thought this would affect the finish, but it seems not to have done.


IMG_0959 by jonnyguitar, on Flickr

When it's dried, you can add another coat to make it look a bit shinier - up to 4 coats will 'bring out' the tyre shine. I personally am not a fan of very shiny tyres, but I did like this finish after two coats. It's also completely dry and so there are no issues with sling if that's something that causes you problems.


DSC_5974 by jonnyguitar, on Flickr

*PROS*

It does look good, no question on that. There was another short write up about this product that suggested the finish suited cars from a particular period, but I do like it and used sparingly (a little goes a LONG way), you get a nice, clean looking tyre. It's also completely dry to touch, which is nice and no buffing needed. In use it spreads really well, probably easier than a gel TBH.
If it lasts as long as is claimed then the effort is probably worth it particularly if you don't have to dress your tyres every time you wash. The brush is very good for scrubbing tyres and regardless of whether I use the cleaner again, I'll certainly use the brush.
Big thumbs up.

*CONS*

Gloves weren't much good, the ends of the thumbs split and fell off pretty quickly. 
It's not exactly cheap - the kits were originally £35 and I'd baulk at paying that but they are more keenly priced now. 
I'm also fairly sceptical about the the longevity of the clearcoat and will try and edit this over the next 2 or 3 washes (up to 6 weeks) if I can to monitor how it looks. The instructions so to not use harsh chemical cleaners, so it will be interesting to see if wheel cleaners and snow foam dull the shine as described. Whether or not I have cleaned the tyres properly will also show up as the clearcoat apparently does not stick to silicone - I know my tyres WILL have had some silicone dressing on them at some point as it appeared to have been the victim of the hand car wash. The cleaner apparently removes silicone, but as a control I also cleaned one of the tyres with Surfex down to about 1:8 so interested to see how that one fares against the other three.
It is initially fiddly to use - the first squeeze of dressing onto the sponge ran off and coated the wheel when I inverted the sponge against the tyre, but once the sponge was primed, it was actually a doddle to use.

Available from Wax Attack for £17.50


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