How To Remove Tire Marks From Garage Floor?

f you recently redone your garage floor or driveway, tire marks are the last thing you want to see on your fresh, epoxied floor. However, tire marks are more than common in car garages, even on brand-new epoxied floors.

There are three different types of tire markings that you can get in your garage.

To understand how to clean tire marks on your garage floor, you'll first need to understand what tire marks are.

Plasticizer Migration

Tire marks on concrete garage floors or driveways are most often caused by hot tires. For example, if your car has been sitting in the garage for a while, your tires will be cold to touch. However, if you've just parked your car inside your garage after going to the mall or for a drive, your tires will be hot to touch. This is because heat builds up in your tires due to friction between the tires and the road.

Tire manufacturers use plasticizers to soften car tires. Plasticizers are a combination of polymer compounds and other chemicals used in the tire industry to create a more flexible rubber compound. This flexible compound gives a tire more traction and helps keep it soft and pliable in cold weather. However, when you park your hot tires on your garage floor, these plasticizers start leaking from the tires into your concrete floor.

When your car is in your garage or driveway, your tires tend to contact the same spot every night. Over time, you will see four tire marks where your car tires sit on your garage floor. This is due to the plasticizer buildup on your concrete garage floor.

And if you think high-quality tires will not leave marks on your floor, think again. High-quality performance tires use a higher quantity of plasticizers.

Hot Tire Pick-Up

When your car tires are hot, they expand. When they cool down, they shrink. Because of the car's weight and the tires' shrinkage, just a wee bit of the concrete sealer or the epoxy coating is pulled off the concrete garage floor. This builds up over time as the car is pretty much parked at the same spot every night.

This can be most noticeable when a concrete coating on your floor has not bonded with the concrete floor. When that's the case, your car tires can lift a big chunk of the coating when you drive off.

Plain Muck

Let's face it—roads are not the cleanest places. When you drive, your tires collect whatever is on the road, including oils, dirt, rocks and even roadkill.

When you drive in, your tires will leave some on your driveway and garage floor. These streaks are easy to detect, and thankfully, they are also not that hard to clean.

How To Remove Tire Marks From A Garage Floor?

So, how easy is it to remove tire marks from your sealed garage floor or driveway? Well, this depends on how long the tire marks have been on the floor and on the quality of your topcoat. The secret to efficiently removing tire marks is to remove them as soon as they appear.

The easiest way to attempt removing tire marks is to soak the area for a few minutes first with a good cleaner or a concrete degreaser. After it has soaked, use a semi-stiff nylon bristle brush to scrub the tire marks. Avoid using a scrub pad, if possible, as these can de-gloss the finish. Don't be surprised if the tire marks don't disappear from the first time. Depending on how long the marks have been on the floor, it can take a lot of soaking and scrubbing.

If this method doesn't work or the buildup is significant, you can always use a product designed to remove tire marks.

The best way to prevent car tire markings is to clean your garage floor routinely. Using a mop with mild detergent once or twice a week will prevent buildup or staining.

Lastly, if you are not big on driving and your car tends to sit more in your garage than on the road, you can always place carpet, cardboard or nylon sheets under your tires—anything really that you can easily discard after a while.

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