Tire life

Hi,

I need advice about assessing tire quality from the experts/ gurus in
this forum.

With regards to tire composition and characteristics, what are the
important things I need to look out for when assessing quality of an
unbranded tire. Assuming that the tires are used in the recommended way
( such as not over loading or over speeding), I have heard that there
are several characteristics of tires which make them last longer, and I
am hoping you can shed some light on the following:

Thread depth - Does the tire last longer if it has a deeper thread?

Ply Rating - Is there any disadvantage to having a high ply rating,
and is there any specific correlation between the number of plys and
the weight. (for example each ply should add x kgs to the weight.)?

Quality of rubber - Is there variation in quality of rubber that can
make a tire last longer. Do they mix rubber with anything to increase
durability?

Tire patterns - what are the advantages and disadvantages of using a
rib/lug/mix designs

Weight of the tire - If it is a heavy tire would it last longer
assuming that there is more rubber used.

Sidewall - what is the difference between good quality and bad
quality sidewall?

The weather condition here is very hot, dry and sandy most of the year
with 4 months of moderate rain. So even the well built roads tend to be
very sandy which I assume increases tire friction. Some of the areas I
travel through are very underdeveloped with a lot of pot holes on the
roads. I have heard that nylon/x-ply/bias tires are better then radials
for uneven road surfaces and radials are better for good road
conditions, is this true?

Thank you for your help,
James

 

Unbranded tires are unbranded because the company who made them does not
wish their reputation to be harmed by being associated with that
particular tire, or because that particular tire was made in a backalley
shop in China that was told by an unscrupulous Western importer "Make them
black and round". The "quality" of an unbranded tire is...there's no such
thing.

Tire sales are always going on. You don't have to spend a fortune. Buying
shitty tires is playing with lives (your own and others on the road).

 

Hi Daniel,

Sorry when I said unbranded I ment a brand that is not yet famous. I
hope you understand. I know that it could be dangerous trying something
new, this is why I am trying to find out what I should know about new
brands tires to minimise the risk. Apart from the making sure they have
E mark, Dot and ISO certified.

Thanks,
James

 

Be more specific about the tire brand.

Richard.

 

So much of our education about tires comes from suspect sources such as
advertising or opinionated consumers. A good situation is when you are on
the knowledge continuum regarding a subject with understandable limits;
then you can gage your ignorance more accurately. With tires, I admit both
ignorance and, to a great extent, a lack of understanding of the boundaries
of tire technology.

I've posted a couple of times in different forums with regard to this
subject. In doing so, as now, I am fishing for someone with the knowledge I
clearly lack to educate me about tires. So far, the only feedback I have
received were emotional responses (and some rants) with no understandable
substance. What I would like is more of an engineer-to-engineer response
that deals with physical properties such as friction, stress loading,
compounds, etc. The request remains open; I am always willing to be
educated.

Since the mind abhors a vacuum, I postulated my own assessment of tires. The
basis of this assessment is that there is little to assess. Here are my
thoughts on the subject, FWIW:

Buy from someone who has, at least, an economic or relationship stake in the
transaction. This means you have a place to go to should the tire deal turn
out rotten. So far, in buying more sets of tires for more cars than I care
to remember, I have only had to go back once to replace a faulty new tire
that only held air for about an hour. Once replaced, the set ran the
anticipated 40K miles or so.

Buy on price. Go cheap. Why not? When is the last time you received input
from your auto insurance company (who has a vested interest in you not
crashing) with any sort of guidance regarding tires. I'll bet the answer is
"never". That's because there is nothing to alert you about. The tires will
go 30 or 40 thousand miles; if they don't, exercise whatever warranty you
get with the dealer who has an interest in keeping you satisfied.

Pay attention to the important things. This includes wheel alignment and
tire pressure. It doesn't include which tires "grip" better or "feel" better
or....well, you get the drift. I'll admit that it doesn't hurt to listen to
what others have to say. There will be something of value there....for
instance: one set of Pirelli tires on my Miata had an unfortunate tendency
to wander on the water grooves on some of our Ca freeways. Go figure.

Tire technology has improved literally tenfold over the past so many years.
I remember my '70 TR6 came with (I believe) Firestone tires that lasted all
of 7,000 miles. Back in the '60s, if the urban legend is correct, GM was
paying their suppliers $2 per tire. Nowadays, I easily get around 40K on any
set of tires. I have "OEM replacement" tires on my Audi (for which I
probably paid too much) that are due for replacement at .....wait for
it....40K miles. I just replaced a set of el cheapos on our Chrysler Town
and Country (at around 40K) with yet another seat of el cheapos that will
easily do about the same.

Life is too short. Worry about other things. There is nothing here worth
getting all excited about.

Best,

Ken

 

Allow me to assist: No-name tires aren't near the *lower* boundaries of
tire technology, not the upper. This isn't suspect advertising hype, it's
just plain common sense.

What part of "Unbranded tires are unbranded because the company who made
them does not wish their reputation to be harmed by being associated with
that particular tire, or because that particular tire was made in a
backalley shop in China that was told by an unscrupulous Western importer
'Make them black and round'" do you find difficult to understand?

The internet is a little bit like God: It helps those who help themselves.
There are numerous very good educational pages on tire engineering
principles, even if you discard those put out by tire companies because
you consider their information tainted. Google is your friend.

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Can you help us interpret what you say there? No name tires
arent "near" the lower boundaries... "not the upper".

I dont want to "read into" that contradictory statement.

 

I have a feeling this is going to be a long thread with opinions all
over the map, mine included. And Daniel Stern may have it right - you
could be a troll motivated to generate a predictably long discussion for
whatever reason.

I am an engineer, but not with experience or technical competency in
tires - only what I have picked up as a consumer for 35+ years of
driving and DIY'ing who happens, for good or bad, to have an engineer's
brain (some might say that I had better give it back, or maybe even that
I'm due a refund).

Here are my opinions, probably none of which I can prove:
Use the UTQG standards (see
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=48) ratings
that are by law printed on at least one side of every tire: Treadwear,
Traction, Temperature.

Having worked in industry in engineering and management in competitive
situations, I've got to believe that there's a quite a bit of stretching
of the specs. by the manufacturers, and there's probably very little if
any meaningful enforcement for truth in specifications. Lacking any
other information to the contrary, I have to simplify things and assume
that they all cheat the same amount, so that would mean the specs. are a
good indicator for comparison shopping (and I asssume the tests to
determine the ratings are meaningful, which they probably are - wouldn't
be surprised if someone wants to argue with that, but that's a starting
point).

No reason these days to go anything less than 400 on treadwear rating.
There are some darn good affordable tires out there with 600 to 650 ratings.

Most tires (probably all I have seen) have an A traction rating - so
apparently that's very do-able even for a lower end tire (maybe the
spec. ranges are two broad).

Most temp. ratings are A or B. Don't go lower than B.

My personal philosophy: Elminate so-called "hi-performance" tires from
your search. Unless your *only* criteria for selection is road grip, you
will get very low bang for the buck - and road grip is not going to be
*that* much better regardless. "Hi-performance" tires, as a category,
have the following characeristics:
(1) Much more expensive unless you settle for even more compromises in
the design and quality than reasonable.
(2) They have poor tread life (way lower than a good, reasonably priced
touring tire).
(3) They have a tendency to have larger tread features (I forget what
you call the individual islands of rubber that make up the tread
pattern), which tend to cause funky wear patterns that become very noisy
starting near the middle of their short tread life.
(4) As a bonus to all the other issues, short of catastrophic failure or
your brother-in-law owning the tire store, you will never get a warranty
adjustment on a "hi-performance" tire even if you can document timely
alignments, maintenance, etc. - they don't care - the manufacturer
assumes that purchasers of "hi-performance" tires, by their very nature,
abuse their tires - burden of proof is on the consumer - and nothing is
provable - so forget it.

Also - buy your tires from the same place you get them installed,
balanced, and rotated and that does your alignments. And get printouts
of your alignments. The fewer parties that are involved, the less
finger pointing to avoid honoring a warranty claim if a problem should
occur (i.e., installer refers you to seller, seller refers you to
manufacturer, manufacturer refers you to the alignment shop, ad
infinitum - you get the picture.

When price shopping apples-to-apples, be sure to add up *all* costs and
benefits of buying mail order and local shop.

**Mail order:
Add in cost of shipping and paying a local shop for mounting and
balancing. Problems 10,000 miles down the road? No help from them.

**Local shop:
Mounting and initial balancing included in price - no shipping cost
added. Many/most shops give free balancing and rotation for the life of
the tires purchased there. Also see above re:
buying/installing/rotating/alignments all being single source (things go
a *lot* smoother if problems).

Can I assume you're not going to be driving well over 100 mph? Good.
Then stick with T or H rated tires (good for extended driving up to 118
mph). To go to higher speed ratings, other things are compromised as
evidenced that many tires are available in T/H speed rating with a given
treadwear rating or guarantee whereas the same tire (same exact model of
tire) in a V speed rating will have a significantly lower treadwear
rating or guarantee.

Most tread depths are 10 to 12 mm. If you have the treadwear rating -
it doesn't matter. Who cares what the intial depth is if it has
whatever treadwear rating. The only difference it could make is at
beginnng of tire life for resistnace to hydroplaning, but there are much
greater determinants of that in the other aspects of the tread design.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/testing/ncap/Tires/pages/TireRatings.cfm is a
easy way to see the UTG Ratings for various tire brands. The UTG ratings are
required by the government.
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/SearchTires.jsp provides consumer opinons on
some tires, but in gerneral only brand name tires.
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/manufacture/ if you get the DOT code off
the tire, you can figure out who actually built the tire. For instance
Goodyear's Kelly Springfield subsiduary also market tires under the
MultiMile brand. Are they as good as Kelly Springfield tires? I don't know.
My Father always claimed they were better. Ironically he always claimed
Goodyear tires were sorry. Even more ironically he is riding around on
Country Squire Radials which are actually just Goodyear made tires. On the
other hand they have been far better than the Firestones that came on his
Ranger.

My opinion is that the different in cost between quality tires and crummy
tires is trival when spread over the life of the tires. Nothing can ruin a
car's driving characteristics faster than second rate tires. My first bad
experience with "bad" private label tires was a set of Grand Prix Radials I
bought for my Datsun 280Z. Turns out these were private labeled Firestone
Radial 500 tires. Yuck! That was the last time I bought private label tires
for my own vehicles.

Ed

 

Good and bad designs can of course come out of the same factory. Specs.
are flexible, and, as with any commodity (tires, batteries, whatever),
compromises are made in the design to target a certain low end market
niche. I get tickled at people who use the fact that two products (one
a brand name, and one a no name) came out of the same factory, so - hey
- why not save a bunch of money and get the cheaper one that, by some
law of (meta)physics, *has* to be just as good.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Whoops, typo. Should read: "No-name tires *ARE* near the _lower_
boundaries of tire technology, not the upper..."

 

No prob ... I wasnt quite sure which way
to go with the orig statement

 

Of they aren't near the lower boundary and not near the upper, are they
exactly in the middle?

Aren't most unbranded or store brand tires sold in the U.S. made by
Kelly Springfield (Goodyear), Goodrich (Michelin), or Cooper?

 

Don't forget Bridgestone/Firestone.

And yes, I think most private label tires are made in US factories (but not
all - you can check the manufacturer's code to determine the plant of
origin). Although the private label tires might be made in the same factory,
it does not mean that the tires are the same as the manufacturer's branded
tires. Heck not even all branded tires from a given manufacturer are the
same quality. Do you think a manufacturer is going to put the top quality
materials and best design features into a tire that will sell for half of
the price of their lowest quality branded tire?

Ed

 

Actually, I am stating what is a genuine opinion and how I came about that
opinion. I am attempting to point out the tendency of people to get highly
emotional over what seems to be a very cut and dry subject. In the spirit of
this emotion, much spewing of contempt and gnashing of teeth are, I suppose,
a substitute for imparting a rational position.

I am an engineer as well without professional experience or technical
competency in tires. Like you, I have been using tires (it's hard to not do
so) for 35+ years. Being an engineer and having that same sort of brain, I
tend to analyze and associate things. So shoot me; but it made me a pretty
good engineer before I became a mere manager of engineers.

When researching the topic, you find that this opinion is shared by others.

Lacking any

ratings.

If a manufacturer warranties the tires for 35 or 40K miles, and they do 35
or 40K miles, I would assume that they are consistent with the rating. Your
point is well taken about cheating. I suspect that these ratings are more of
a competitive marketing issue; engineers likely get little input as to what
gets stamped on the tire.

I have been buying my tires pretty much exclusively from a local Wheel
Works outlet. I just put a set of tires on one of our cars that ran me $60
per tire. To me, $50 - $60 sounds about right. I have alignment done there
as well. Frankly, it's a bit hit and miss. The equipment for alignment seems
better designed than in years past, but the skill of the individual mechanic
appears to be a big part of the equation. I watch my tire wear and if it is
even, I won't let them touch the alignment. If not, I roll the dice again
and see if they do a better job the next time...Wheel Works has a 1 yr
warranty, so if it doesn't seem right, you can have them mess with it again
at no additional charge.

Yea...agree. I wouldn't do it.

You can haggle with a local shop based on the prices you get from Tire Rack.
This is a competitive business and they would rather have you roll out on a
new set of tires than not.

If I lived in Germany, this would be a real issue.

 

I hear ya.

Here's a tire to use as a baseline for comparison (to paraphrase Lee
Iacocca: "If you can find a better tire for the money, buy it): Cooper
Lifeline Touring SLE. UTQG ratings A B 620. Treadwear life for the
T-speed rated is, IIRC, 70k miles - pretty respectable. In a normal
profile 16", about $80. *Super* quiet (important if you're driving an
LH car like I do - they seem to amplify tire noise). Very good
hydroplaning resistance. Also, I have read that Pep Boys carries the
same tire under a different brand name - don't recall what the brand
name is. I assume the pricing might be slightly lower, but assume that
the tread compounds are the same (same A B 620 ratings), I believe it is
the exact same tire with different labeling/branding.

While it is, IMO, a waste of money to pay $120 or way higher for a
non-exotic tire, you might be surpised at what moving your price bracket
up into the $75-85 range will get you (if were talking 15 or 16" -
prices go up exponentially with wheel size). IMO that's the sweet spot.
But certainly that is a matter of opinion and is subject to an
individual's needs and wants.

By that time the horse is out of the barn, and you have unusual wear
patterns set in, and early wearout is certain. You missed the part in
my ealier post (see above) about getting printouts. I get 'before' and
'after' printouts. You would not believe how they come in handy in
diagnosing certain problems and eliminating guesswork and wasting time
on where the problem isn't. I suppose someone could argue that the
printouts could be faked, and that may be true, but the proof is in the
pudding, and if you find a shop that is gaslighting you, you know that
you take your business to another shop. But for one thing, it lets them
know that you are awake and paying attention.

Well, from my analyses, the local shop would then have to *raise* their
price. What seems to be a bargain price by mail order quickly tarnishes
when you add *all* the costs (shipping, mounting & initial balancing, no
lifetime rotation, no lifetime balancing) for true apples-to-apples.

The only time I bought from TR was when getting a set of aftermarket
wheels with the tires pre-mounted and balanced - then the total costs
probably worked out. But to just buy tires to save money - no way.
(BTW - those tires later developed problems - and I had absolutely
nowhere to turn and no recourse - lesson learned.)

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

My father said that the radials he bought in the 1970s with treadwear
ratings of about 150 lasted about 35,000-40,000 miles, but today's
tires rated for 400 don't seem to last any longer. Apparently the
federal government stopped checking the test results around the time
Reagan became President.

 

To many varible here as the wear rating does not factor in car weight,
alignment and vehical usage. A heavier vehical will eat the tires
quicker than a lighter one will amd FWD cars will wear front tires
quicker if you do not rotate tham from time to time. (which you should
do RWD or FWD.

 

The car with the old radials on it was heavier and RWD, and all the
tires in question wore down very evenly. I think that tire
manufacturers have simply been exaggerating the treadwear numbers.

 

Thread depth - Does the tire last longer if it has a deeper thread?

Only if you purchase the deep weave option. What you want is a plush or
high pile Thread for winter driving or bumpy roads. The tire won't
really last any longer, but it will seem like it because you have to
vacuum it every 2 or 3 days.

Mummy powder is sometime used, although others prefer a
titanium-concrete alloy, but it is a bit loud at highway speed.
You might want to try to seek out a nice combination of teflon and
super glue. The super glue really makes it hold the highway, while the
teflon makes it easy to clean.

a fair question and an easy one. a good quality sidewall makes you
feel like god's right hand man. Your living on top and all's right with
the world. Your A number one with a bullet on the charts.
With a bad quality sidewall you just get a headache and go to sleep.

Experts are mixed on this, but most feel it is primarily to confuse
bugs thereby making it easier to run them over and squash them. Some
feel it has something to do with traction and hydroplaning and such,
there is always a mad fringe on any issue, pay no attention and pick
what looks right to you.

I hope this has been helpful in your purchasing decisions. Mostly look
for tires that are round and about the right size to fit on your
wheels, also most people prefer black as a color choice though some
feel red is making a comeback. Be sure the dealer or agent where you
purchase your tires will provide free air for the life of the tires.
Make a point of this BEFORE you purchase! You may want to make sure
your spare will feel comfortable in the trunk by sleeping curled up in
the tire well for a few days just to see what it is like.

Just some tips.........