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 - is it better to have a

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
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First I'll be a nice guy and not cross post this seven ways to sunday. I am sure Misc.transport.trucks could care less about a thread on auto tires.

There was a time 25 years ago when Mich where one of the best tires on the market. They go lumpy and never seem to hold balance any more, and their LT line cant seem to hold tread any better than firestone.

In the good ole days if you had a car you wanted to really hug the road, you went to a performance tire shop and had half the tread shaved off. The deeper the tread, the more squirm, the more squirm the more prone to breaking loose.

Deep deep tread is one way cheap manufactures get tires to go high mileage. A good compound can give you both good performance and good life, key word here is GOOD. If you want great performance you get gatorbacks and change them every

15,000 miles, if you drive kinda easy. You drive hard, maybe they go 10,000 miles.

personally tires are an area where I believe you get what you pay for. Years ago when I worked for Sears, people would come in with conversion vans and want a $40 P235-70-15 tire and expect it to last 50,000 miles. You weren't going to convince them they weren't going to last, handle or ride worth a dang. When the tires started wearing out because of the loads placed on them, they would come back screaming and demanding a new set of better tires. Sad thing is they usually got them for free.

I like Goodyear. They have never let me down. I've had Mich, Bridgestone, firestones by name brand, and Cooper, Hancock, and a host of others, but I always end up back with Goodyear's. The Coopers rode ok, and good mileage but wouldn't hold the road. Mich's wouldn't hold balance and wore out premature. Bridgestone's were on one when I bought it and I didn't like anything about them, and the Firestones were on a Jeep J-20 I had in the service back in the 70's when I bought it and they came unglued. I did run a set of Mohawks on that that weren't too bad, but then those were my off road days and they were big time mudders, rough ride, and noisy. sad thing is the demise of all the american tire manufactures, there is just Goodyear and Cooper any more of any size.

The main reason for increased numbers of ply's is load capacity. The higher the load rating the more ply's. LT tires come in 3-4 load ratings in the popular sizes. Be aware that there are more than few tires out there that "look" like "LT", but are really "P" metric. If you dig deep enough into tire manufactures literature and fact sheets you will find that "P" metric tires "lose" 20% of their load rating when used as a light truck tire. They are not designed to handle heavy loads day in and day out at highway speeds. That said if your not carrying loads, the "P" metric ride better and get better gas mileage.

Whitelightning

Reply to
Whitelightning

Per snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com:

I'm neither an expert nor a guru.

But my take as a dumb consumer is that tires are, for my purposes, worn out far before their tread thickness has diminished to any minimum measurement.

I base this on the vast improvement in ride/handling that I perceived the couple of times I got new tires of the same make/model after around 30k miles.

The first couple of times were flukes due to tire failure - as in getting curbed or cut.

Admittedly, I'm one of those whose car seems to run better after I wash it... but the improvement I'm talking about is just too obvious to be my imagination.

My theory is that stuff wears within the casing as well as on the surface. Maybe the belts get a little loose... I dunno... but I've taken to replacing tires at around 30k regardless...

Reply to
(PeteCresswell)

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