Sipes Deserve Credit For Tire Traction
They grab, grope and grip but somehow don’t grasp drivers’ gratitude for contributing to a safe ride on roadways. Sipes, sometimes called kerfs, are the narrowest slits found on tread patterns and are often overlooked when customers compare one tire’s attributes to another. A tread’s aggressive radial and lateral slots, which are wider than sipes,
Wet Traction Relies on Where the Rubber Meets the Road
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Goodyear’s Aquatred, considered to be the industry’s breakthrough rain tire. After decades of industry attempts, that tire’s introduction finally elevated the importance of a tread pattern’s contribution to wet traction performance with its aqua channel design and accompanying water pump action.Rubber compound advancements have emerged alongside ongoing tread
Supercars and Super Tires: What’s in the DNA?
Think of "hot" or "cool" cars. The superlatives usually mean the same thing in the automotive vernacular and generate super-macho names like Porsche Carrera GT, Dodge Viper, Ferrari Italia and Bugatti Veyron.The monikers invoke images of bright colors streaking through mountain passes on the Autobahn and conjure dreams of one parked in a lucky American’s
Electronic Stability Control and the Role of Tires
Electronic stability control – ESC – introduced in 1995 and touted as the second most important advancement in auto safety after seat belts, will finally be standard equipment on all passenger vehicles sold in the U.S. starting in 2012. ESC is supposed to help drivers maintain safe control of their vehicles and prevent accidents. But
Always Install Two New Tires on the Rear Axle
When it’s time to replace only two tires on passenger vehicles, logic should take a back seat to physics – or in this case, a rear axle. Typically, vehicles are shod with four similarly designed and constructed tires of the same size on the front and back. The tread depth of each starts out equal,
Balancing Rolling Resistance With Other Performance Characteristics
Tires play a vital role in a vehicle’s energy consumption. At normal driving speeds, passenger tires account for up to 20% of a car’s fuel consumption. In other words, in a passenger car, one out of every five tanks of fuel is used to overcome the tires’ rolling resistance. For a commercial truck, it can
Help Customers Know When to Change Over to Winter Tires
son radials – by as much as 25% to 50%. That’s enough gripping traction and braking power to avoid a severe weather-related accident. All-season tires are produced with tread compounds that are physically harder than a typical winter tire. The increased hardness is mandatory to withstand the high temperatures that come during spring and summer
From Plant to Store, Today’s Tires Must be in Balance
Round and black was once the acceptable way to describe a tire. Today, most are still black, but car owners demand that they must be a lot rounder. What the consumer really wants is a tire that not only is round or concentric, but also perfectly balanced with uniform distribution of mass. The evolving need
Advancing in N.A. Market Takes Products, Cooperation, Technology
As with most great adventures, the first steps are usually the hardest to take. CMA and Double Coin began marketing TBR products in North America in 1992, with container-delivered, price-driven programs. Dealers were able to use the products as profit building items to offer end-users cost alternatives. Distributors could use the products as profitable lines
Renewable Materials, New Combinations Improving Tire Breed
As a dealer, you are already familiar with the fact that renewable materials from plants are used in the production of some tires. Natural rubber, which comes from latex collected from rubber trees, is one of them. Another is rayon, which comes from plant cellulose. Rayon is used as part of the carcass, a reinforcement
Pirelli’s Intelligent Cyber Tire ‘Speaks to the Car’
As with all tiremakers, Pirelli’s R&D department in Milan, Italy, works to deliver increased active and passive safety to drivers. But one new tool in its arsenal is a computerized chip installed in the carcass of what has been dubbed “Cyber Tire.” Development of the Cyber Tire began several years ago. Unlike previous “tire chip”
Rolling Resistance: What Really Makes a Tire Fuel-Efficient?
res are carbon black and silica.The use of lower levels of filler and larger sized particles result inbetter rolling resistance. Carbon black is predominantly used in tires,but the use of silica has become a primary alternative to improverolling resistance. When silica is used to improve rolling resistance,it is traditionally used with a silane coupling agent,