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

Reply to
jamesp010
Loading thread data ...

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).

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

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

Daniel J. Stern wrote:

Reply to
jamesp010

Be more specific about the tire brand.

Richard.

Reply to
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

Reply to
KWS

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.

+--------------------------------------+ \ 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 / \ \ 1 9 / \ 0 \ 10 / \ \ TROLL-O-METER / \ \ / \ \ / \___\______________________/ \ / \....................../
Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

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.

Reply to
mst

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

formatting link
ratingsthat 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')

Reply to
Bill Putney

formatting link
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

Reply to
C. E. White

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')

Reply to
Bill Putney

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

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

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

Reply to
mst

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?

Reply to
larry moe 'n curly

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

Reply to
C. E. White

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

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.

Reply to
KWS

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')

Reply to
Bill Putney

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.

Reply to
larry moe 'n curly

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.

Reply to
TheSnoMan

Don't know why I reply to this joker - but mose tires that wear like iron - particularly "cheap" ones, have very poor wet traction as well. (also poor traction on hot pavement) I'd rather replace tires every

40,000 miles be able to stop and accellerate adequately when required than to have tires last 120,000 and not be able to stop or accellerate when necessary. 40,000 miles is 5 years of summer driving on my wife's car, and about 3 on my van. I spend about $90 each for both summer and winter tires for both vehicles and consider it money well spent. When I removed my summer tires last fall they still had over 50% tread left, but I threw them away so I would not be tempted, in one of my "cheap" moments, to put them back on the van. They were DANGEROUS (3 year old BFG TA Touring). I put on top of the like Goodyears this time round, and have Dunlop Graspics for the winter.
Reply to
nospam.clare.nce

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.

Reply to
larry moe 'n curly

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.