how is tyre grip rated?

[mellonman]

Thats is very usefull nice one

[Mario]

^^It's difficult to explain in a few sentences, good question though, been busy since yesterday evening to gather some information as I'm not aware how far you are with knowledge when it comes to tires,

compounds for different applications, tire manufacturing processes with their chemical ingredients which are carefully chosen to produce a batch of a certain tire for a certain application.

I'm not a specialist nor a chemist but if you know what contact patch is ideal for your application, you then can choose your tire width's and your personal preference in compounds, due to the different compounds

you have to choose what for your area and goals is ideal. I mean if you want longevity more then too lose a little bit of traction, well it's all about preference's.

^^ Are you going to use your application in all weathercircumstances? ie rain, cold temps, below 0 degrees, above 10 degrees or are you an sunny day only driver. 20 plus degrees?

If you look into the different continents, for example, down here in the Netherlands most of the year the temperature is below 20 degrees, and you can see how many water felt out of the sky according the weather statistics.

If you have a few parameters it will deffinately help you as a tire customer in choosing the right tire for your application. IE it is really difficult to say what tire is the best performing, as it really depends on a few more parameters When it comes to tires and grip and their markings you can always have a look into the DOT approved R compound tires, but you can also see the tires treadwear as the tires tread is the actual layer of the tire

which makes contact with the road, well the tread wear is a few digit number which says something about the tread wear,

We can assume that a tire with 140 wears out faster then a tire with a treadwear rating of 200, we can also assume that both tires have a different bottle of ingredients in them when they were produced.

What we can assume also is that the tire with a 140 rating is softer then the 200 rated tire, softer tires improves performance in some cases if you want that, but on the other hand if you need to drive the 24hrs of le mans

for example with as low pitstops as you can you want the tires to wear out slower, so as said it's about preferences really.

Treadwear grades are an indication of a tire's relative wear rate. The higher the treadwear number is, the longer it should take for the tread to wear down.

A control tire is assigned a grade of 100. Other tires are compared to the control tire. For example, a tire grade of 200 should wear twice as long as the control tire.Of current tires:

15% are rated below 200

 

25% are rated 201 - 300

 

32% are rated 301 - 400

 

20% are rated 401 - 500

 

6% are rated 501 - 600

 

2% are rated above 600

 

^^treadwear bridgestone potenza RE050A example

^^treadwear Kumho Ecsta XS example

Information gathered from,

http://www.safercar.gov/Vehicle+Shoppers/Tires/Tires+Rating#wear , http://auto.howstuffworks.com/tire.htm , http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/webprojects2003/hancock/manufacture.html ,

http://www.europeancarweb.com/tech/0408ec_performance_tire_guide_r_compounds/index.html , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tire , http://tyres.wordpress.com/2009/03/26/tyre-tread-compounds/ ,

 

http://www.carbibles.com/tyre_bible_pg3.html,

[mellonman]

guys thanks for all the iformation im very sure this will help others when buying tyres or at least know what they are buying

 

i found this link for reviews

 

http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Tyre/

Edited April 5, 2012 by mellonman (see edit history)