Cost: £13 for 500ml

Date of Review: 13/4/2025

The Sales Pitch from CarPro:

DarkSide’s 60% polydimethylsiloxane formula allows for a super quick and easy application with our dedicated tyre or microfibre applicators, leaving a beautiful satin shine look. Needless to say, it is equipped with all of our famous self-cleaning, hydrophobic properties, as well as UV and chemical resistance, prolonging the new look of your tyres.

Every quick application of DarkSide will last up to 3 months!

Source:  https://carpro.global/product/darkside/

What You Get:

Five hundred millilitres of hydrophobic and UV protecting product in a pump action bottle.

Also with this product we used the CarPro Darkside Tyre Brush which retails at around the £15 mark.

Product Description:

This is a tyre dressing product that should give a nice sating finish, giving hydrophobic properties and UV protection. This is not a super high gloss finish some of us are after for show cars. But, on a daily car this should make the tyres look like they just left the factory.

A virtually odourless product that has a consistency of a quality washing up liquid.

Instructions:

1. Clean and dry tyres thoroughly (we recommend CARPRO ReTyre)
2. Squirt DarkSide 2-3 times on a tyre applicator or CARPRO MF Applicator and apply evenly over the tyre wall.
3. Avoid water contact and allow to dry for 1-2 hours.

The tyres were cleaned using another manufacturers tyre cleaner which removed the previous coatings very efficiently.

All tyres were left to dry in the sun. The tyres came up very well considering how dirty they were.

Testing Environment:

A sunny day with no breeze.

Application:

To apply the product it’s recommend to apply two to three pumps of product onto the applicator brush.

The product sat nicely on the bristles. I quickly wiped the product over the tyre which spread very quickly once around, then go around again to even out the coating. Stopping half way just to show the before and after of the untreated tyre.

The CarPro brush is brilliant, it allows super easy application with no spillage. The fine bristles allow you to get right in close to the rim covering the entire tyre with no mess. The best tyre applicator I have used yet and so much nicer than an applicator pad or the easily damaged and torn foam type applicators. The brush is a ergonomic with a central stub to hold the brush. When the brush is not in use it clips neatly into it’s own round cover protecting the bristles and protecting anything else from getting the product on it from the brush.

After application the product must be allowed to dry/cure for one to two hours avoiding water contact.

Results:

They tyre was coated evenly with little to no effort once the tyre was cleaned. The finish after application was initially very shiny on a par with many gloss products. After a little while maybe fifteen minutes or so the gloss faded into a more expected satin OEM look for the tyre.

The fine bristles worked the product into the tyre wall effortlessly and complete application only took a minute or so for each tyre.

The application of product so simple. However it’s important that the tyre is clean. This will allow for a proper bonding of the product to the tyre.

Once cured (dried) the rain did hit the tyre and it beaded straight off which is impressive for a tyre coating.

After driving for a while there was no product sling and the tyre still looked as it did after the product dried. Longevity is reportedly ‘to be ‘up t’will last up to three months+’. I’m not convinced it will last that long in our harsh and wet winters. It should last longer when not subjected to winter conditions.

Rating:  9 out 10

The score is based on the product itself, as you don’t actually need the brush, but I highly recommend it. The product does give that factory OEM look back to tyres. The cost is very reasonable and economical and will last a good while for multiple applications.

Why not full marks? I really do like the look of the product, but I did detect a very small patchiness on one tyre, which I will put down to my poor prep on that tyre. The tyre still looked good, but not very even to a critical eye, so I can’t mark the product for that. As a product it’s worth full marks, providing the prep is put into the cleaning first, which can make the job longer.

The bottles pump action on the top of the bottle stays up and is susceptible to accidental pressure and so you could end up squirting product if stored in a detailing bag with something on top of it. Perhaps a little lockout to stop the depression would be a welcome upgrade. As a package only the pump nozzle works very well, but the lack of a lock out knocks a mark off.

(Brush rating is 10 out of 10 in case you wanted to know).

Ease of use – 10

Finish – 9

Conclusion:

This product was loaned to me by a good friend of mine and I don’t actually own the product. After my trial use as it were, I will be buying this product for my daily drivers.

The preparation of the tyre is key, if the tyre is dirty then the product won’t be able to bond with the tyre itself which could look patchy and effect the longevity of the product.

Do you have to clean the tyre back to bare rubber to apply again? It doesn’t say – it just says clean. As the product only took an matter of minutes to apply the re-application of the product doesn’t become a chore to do when cleaning the car. In turn nice tyres does keep the car looking nice.

I haven’t tired this on a rubber seals of door seals yet. But I do believe it will last a lot longer where the elements won’t have a chance to weather away the coating.

Would I recommend it? Yes

Would I buy it again? Yes

Update:

After a few months I will add an update, if not before.