First of all, we need to know how car tires is made. A simple car tire looked like a round rubber black thing wrapping over your rims. Actually it is made of several parts; the body, bead and trends.
The body is made of many layers of different materials called plies. Usually the material used is polyester cord. These plies are covered with rubber to bond all other components together. The strength of the car tires is dependent on the number of piles. Car tires usually have 2 plies.
The bead is a loop of high-strength steel cable coated with rubber. The bead strengthen the tire which is required to make the tire seated well on the wheel rims and to hold well to the rims when forces are applied by the tired mounting machines during installation.
The trend is the main contact and drainage portion to the road. This is an important portion which need to withstand temperature, strong forces and maintain tire traction. It is usually made from of many different kinds of synthetic and natural rubbers. The tread and the sidewalls are extruded and cut to length. A car tire-building machine will assemble all these components. These machines ensures accurate position of components and finished dimensions.
Example: P215/75/ R15.
P denotes the tire type which is passenger vehicle tire. 215 is the width of the tire in millimeters from sidewall to sidewall. 75 is is aspect ratio of the tire height to the width. Finally R15 is the rim size.
General recommendation is high performance tires have lower aspect ratio. This is to have better stability but you will lose comfort level as there is lesser air cushion.
Another specification is the trend wear, traction and temperature. Trend wear is example 480, Traction like AA to C and temperature rating A, B and C. The bigger the trend wear, the longer the trend will last. Traction rating is AA as the best while C is the worst. Temperature rating A is the top of the scale.
Lastly is the load rating and speed rating. Load rating is load capacity at the given inflation pressure. Speed rating is the speed that tire can handle based on tire speed rating chart.
Few important factors to consider when buying a car tire. Hydroplaning, driving style and tire air pressure.
Hydroplaning occurs when driving over a paddle of water like during raining day. Without proper pushing out of water by trends, the tires will moving on water. With no contact onto the road, there is no proper traction. The car can lose traction and control, this can be dangerous especially at high speed or braking.
Driving style is important. For a fierce driving style, you will need good braking contact and control on the road meaning that it is important to get a good rating car tire.
Lastly is the car tire air pressure. There are recommendations provided by the supplier. Under inflated tyres will require more forces to propel the car forward, thus using more petrol. At the same time, this results in faster wearing of the car trends. Over inflated tires will lose traction due to lesser contact to the road. At the same time, the ride will become harder as the tire is stiffen with higher pressure.
Car Tires Information
There are many car tires in the market. One can be confused by many brands like Continental, Hankook, GoodYear, Pirelli, Michelin, Bridgestone and BF Goodrich. Besides the different big and small brands, you may be wondering how tires are made to last so long on the road and what to look for in the tire specifications. Tire specifications of many types can make you confused and wondering what specification suits your car and your driving style. Over here, i hope to show with you what car tires is all about in layman terms.
