WINTER TIRE GUIDE how it’ll help you decide what tire you think will be best for you. Let’s start with one of the most common features you’ll hear when referring to winter tires, and that’s “silica.” Silica is a compound added to the rubber used in tires, and it’s added for various reasons, depending on the tire. In most cases, it’s added to increase wet weather performance. In the case of winter tires, though, it’s done to not only enhance wet weather traction, but it mainly allows the rubber in the tire to resist getting hard in the cold. With standard tires, as the temperature drops, the rubber becomes hard. Similar to the way a hockey puck is frozen before a game, to reduce friction. So your all-season tires without silica in them basically act like hockey pucks in the cold and on ice. The silica basically keeps the rubber in your tire flexible, and that flexibility is what gives you traction in the snow, ice and in the cold.
The Nitty Gritty Story by Arch Linsao, photos courtesy of manufacturers got a confession to make. After rambling on and on for years trying to Iand’ve convince you all to buy winter tires, I think I’ve finally ran out of reasons ways to list them. And it wasn’t for lack of trying, but to be honest I think I’ve pretty much said all there is to say about why you should buy them.
This year, I’m going to do things a bit differently. I’m going to take a slightly different, and less pushy, approach. I’m going to give you all the benefit of the doubt and assume you’ve finally decided to take my advice, and now you’re ready to buy some winter tires.
Next up is siping, or sipes. There are so many variations of sipes on tires nowadays. We’ve got 3D sipes, zigzag sipes, multi-angle sipes, swing sipes, canyon sipes, etc. Basically, every tire company has a different way of applying sipe technology into their tires. A sipe in a tire is actually the thin grooves that are carved into the tread blocks of a tire. In winter tires, they’re usually curvy and look like squiggly lines running across each tread block. And basically, what they do is help pull water away from the face of the tread, thus giving the tread face that contacts the ground more grip. As your tire tread contacts the wet surface, the tread blocks will flex and as they do that, the sipes in the tread block open and the water on the surface gets sucked into the sipe. Then as it closes, the water evacuates out the side of the sipes into the larger tread grooves or voids, which channel all the water away from the contact patch of the tire. The sipes increase the number of biting edges that come into contact with the road surface and provide traction for your tires.
That sets us up for our next feature, tread voids or tread grooves. You’ll hear this also referred to as a void-to-tread ratio. This just refers to the larger grooves in the tread of the tire which actually just channel water away from the part of the tire that contacts the ground. Depending on how and where they are carved into the tire, they’ll either evacuate the water out the side of the tires (lateral grooves), or behind the tire as it’s rolling (longitudinal grooves). At first glance, it really just dictates what the tire looks like, but it’s not that simple. These grooves are usually computerOkay, so you start searching for tires and start reading through pages and designed and engineered to evacuate water a certain way in order to help pages of reviews, ratings, charts and photos. Then you get to the technical the tire perform at its best when wet. specifications and you are all of a sudden overwhelmed with technical tire jargon that makes absolutely no sense. Well, that’s what I’m going to do, Still on the topic of tread design, many winter tires will also feature a distinct I’m going to try to make sense of it all for you. Well most of it, at least. centre rib. This is the tread block that runs continuously around the centre of the tire. The reason this is done on many winter tires is to enhance While all the tire manufacturers out there try to keep an edge on their stability. Generally speaking, winter tires are thought to be much “softer” competition by developing different and unique attributes for their tires to than regular tires due to the flexibility in the tread that the silica compound perform better than others, a lot of this development and innovation all provides. With more flexibility in the tread, there’s more tread squirm, which revolves around some key elements that all of the winter tires out there is movement in the tread blocks. Without a design feature such as a centre feature. Basically, because they’re proven to work. All tires have them, rib to add lateral stability and enhance the handling characteristics of many it’s just that each manufacturer will develop and feature them a bit differ- winter tires, you’d find the tires would wander and squirm at higher speeds ently than the next. Just like shoes, for example. They all have the same or when cornering due to the movement in the tread blocks. So the centre components and materials, just laid out a bit differently. My regular readers rib is there to counteract the side effects of a softer and more flexible silica will see what I did there. compound based tread. Another feature that serves a similar purpose is a reinforced shoulder tread block (the outer-most tread block on the outer Now I could sit here and go through every single variation of every single side of the tire that meets the sidewall) or a reinforced sidewall. feature of every single tire, but really I’d take up the whole issue of the magazine and I’m sure the editor wouldn’t be overly impressed. So I’m So that’s just a few of the many different features that make winter tires, going to break it down and keep with the common denominators, the core winter tires. As mentioned, there are so many more specific features that features that make winter tires actually winter tires. And from there, you’ll each tire company brings to the table, and so many more variations of be able to have more of an understanding of how each tire company is each feature that they use to make their tire stand out amongst the rest. trying to innovate and make each feature their own. Thus, helping you I’d love to list them all but really, as long as you understand some of the understand a bit more what you’re buying, as well as why you’re buying more commonly used features, you’ll be able to decipher the rest of the it. So here it is, let’s get down to the “nitty gritty.” tire jargon that comes your way on your quest to find your winter tires. So you’ve sat down at your computer, coffee and a snack to your left (at least that’s how I roll), and now you’re ready to go. We all know that nowadays, the first place we look is online to try to do our homework and narrow down all the choices. Wait, scrap that... online is the second place we look because we all know that the first place we look is in this magazine and at this article in particular, right? Right! Carrying on.
You’ll easily be able to look up the following features and find dictionary definitions for them....sure. But will that really help you in figuring out why it makes a winter tire do what it does? It may or may not. What I’ll do is give it to you in a way that relates each feature to tires specifically, and that’s 30 At The Wheel RPM Oct / Nov 2013
And as always, talk to your tire expert if you’re still having trouble choosing between tire A and tire B. They’ll be able to help you decide based on what features of each tire will be best suited to you, your driving and your vehicle.