Yes, Racer, I can see the triangle principle.
And, I think you have an excellent discussion here, that I can subscribe to. I appreciate your patience-- that's needed sometimes with me.
Ernie Rogers
Quote:
Originally Posted by CapriRacer
Remember it's a triangle and traction is the third leg.
So it is possible to make a tire with good RR and good wear properties, but it will suffer somewhat in the traction department.
This might be a good example of the complexity.
When Michelin says these are good for RR, are they comparing these tires to regular replacement tires? If so, then they may get good wear, but their RR would be only be better than regular replacement ires, but not as good for RR as some OEM tires - which would have either wear or traction complaints (or both).
Also, keep in mind that most tire wear occurs in the cornering mode. So if most of your travel is in a straight line, even potentially poor wearing tires will wear well.
Again, keeping in mind that it's a triangle, harder rubbers tend to wear well.
I think that is a good rule of thumb. The problem would be comparing tires with different families of rubber chemistry.
For example, different manufacturers will have slightly different rubber formulations - and the rule would apply within that family, but will have some variation between families.
This also means that even within a given tire manufacturer, if different families of rubber compounds are compared, you'll get different hardnesses compared to the wear / traction / RR triangle - such as the difference between an all carbon black formulation vs a silica / carbon black mixture.
Another factor to consider is that there are tricks that can be employed to improve the wear. Tread elements using large blocks wear better than those with small blocks. But this hurts snow traction.
Another trick would be to use more non-skid depth. An increase in original tread depth from 11/32nds to 12/32nds appears to increase the usable tread aby 11%, but you will get something less than that (Wear rates are not linear relative to tread depth.)
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