Everyone likes to see their car clean as a whistle. The sun reflecting off of the bright and newly gleaming paint, the Reno landscape around you bouncing off of your slick windshield. But what about your tires? You want to use some kind of tire shining solution, but heard rumors that the solution it uses is bad for your brakes, but is it true? Yes, it is true, in a sense.

The spray itself will not affect the brakes directly. The solution will not corrode your brake pads or calipers, and it will not stain them, either. However, if you spray a tire shine solution directly at the rotor, the liquid will stick to the calipers, rotors, and pads since it is closer to a creamy oil substance than water.

This is where it begins to negatively affect your car. Initially, you will not even notice a difference in ride quality in your car when you first drive it after tire-shining the rotors, but over time you will be able to pick up on the differences. First, the more you drive the car, the more frequently you pass over rocks, dirt, plastic and whatever else may be littered across the streets and highways of Reno. Because tire shine solution is a sticky oil type liquid, the random road debris will stick to your brake rotors, pads, and calipers. This causes a lot of bad things.

For instance, if a small rock gets stuck in between the rotor and caliper, you will shortly be taking a trip to Wayne’s Automotive Center in Reno to get your rotors replaced, because as you apply pressure on the brakes with a rock stuck in the tire shine, it will drag the rock across the rotor, creating a large crevice in the rotor, rendering it useless. This can happen no matter where debris gets stuck in behind your car’s wheels.

Nobody wants to visit the repair shop to get brakes fixed, but everyone wants their car to look pretty and shiny, so remember; if you use tire shine, be sure to keep it away from anything except the bare rubber of the tire!