Tires are the most important part of your car. This article is a just a small bit of the knowledge and theory behind tire technology. Since I tend to ramble on and its going to be rather diverse as far as subjects, I’m going to break it up into a few parts.
First things first. Most of my experience is from asphalt track and road surface. So I’m going to start with that. Sand, gravel, dirt and inclement weather conditions have different needs than a dry asphalt performance tire. We’ll get to that at a later article.
The tires on your car are the only thing making contact with whatever surface you are driving on (or at least should be). They provide the lateral and longitudinal grip so that you can move the car with the power your engine is producing. Being that they are the only thing making your car motivate, they should be the first item on the list as far as modifications go on your car. The upside per dollar is just too big to ignore.
To quote a Pirelli ad campaign, “Power without control is nothing”. I’m sure someone else quoted it earlier, but I’ll forgo the websearch and get to the meat of the subject. There is no performance modification more important than tire. To upgrade your tires means to upgrade your grip, handling, braking, and even the ability to get a little more aggressive with the throttle. Not only can you get more grins per mile this way, The added braking or grip can help you avoid an accident, which helps your driving record or insurance rates.
Now to the problem. There is no performance mod that is least tested head to head than tires. Once in a while you might see a car book do this. If you do, read that article. The last one I saw was two years ago in Car and Driver. But I have been slacking on reading at the Wal-Mart magazine rack lately too. You want to make sure the test is done objectively. All testing must be done on either the same car or same model cars, and depending on application of tire, a wide range of conditions. Of course your looking at an organization that is objective and non-biased. An ad from Michelin doesn’t mean anything in comparison to another tire unless the results are from a non-biased source.
There are metric tons of different types of tires. The types and differences are coming in the next segment. This will help you figure out which tire is right for your car or toy. Along with a few caviats to go with the advice.