Are you tired of tire marks on your driveway or garage floor? Tire marks in the driveway leave an unsightly blemish on what is often the first impression of our home, and take away from what could otherwise be lovely curb appeal. We do a lot to maintain our homes and our property value; we plant flowers, mow and water the lawn, maintain our doors, windows and home exterior. Nobody likes ugly tire marks taking away from all our hard work to improve the appearance of our home.
What Causes Tire Marks?
Tire marks are basically pieces of rubber that get ground into the surface. Tires are made of plasticizers which contain different polymer compounds that make rubber tires more flexible. The plasticizers in tires serve many valuable purposes, they help tires to provide traction on the road, and keep them more pliable and flexible in cold weather.
When these plasticizers heat up, however, from driving on the road or from the hot weather in Arizona, they tend to leach out and leave black rubber marks all over your garage floors or driveway. This can also happen when your car sits for a long time in one position. This is called plasticizer migration, and is even more noticeable with higher quality tires as opposed to the low budget variations, as higher quality tires typically have a higher concentration of plasticizers.
How to Remove Tire Marks
It is usually possible to remove those unsightly tire marks from your garage or driveway, although some factors come into play that affect the ease in which tire marks can be removed. How long they have been there, how thick they are, and of course, what surface you are trying to remove them from make a big difference in the ease in getting rid of these tiresome tire marks.
Remove Tire Marks with Ease from Your Epoxy Coated Floor
It is much easier to remove tire marks from a vinyl or epoxy coated and sealed floor, than from plain concrete, metal or other surfaces. With your epoxy coated floor, tire marks will usually come off by scrubbing with some soap and water.
Non-Epoxy Coated Floor and Tire Marks
Non-epoxy coated surfaces pose additional challenges and are a bit more difficult to remove stains and tire marks. You can try a variety of solvents and be sure to follow manufacturer directions for use, safety and clean up.
In some cases, a simple concrete degreaser might do the trick, depending on the length of time the tire marks have been there and how ground into the surface they are. Some other options for the do-it-yourselfer include various solvents and cleaners, that may work better with a pressure washer to wash away the loosened plasticizer pieces and the solvent.
You’ll want to be careful, however, with chemicals and a power washer to not chip or damage a coated and sealed surface.
