Tires, is there a right answer?

[slowmover]

Highest quality usually means highest price. MICHELIN or BRIDGESTONE are my pair of choices. Closed-shoulder, Highway Rib is highest mpg.

The truck is also a problem if FF/RR vehicle weight remains skewed to FF.

New shocks (Bilstein 4600) also.

If cab & bed frame bushings are original, change them. Same for spring bushings front & rear.

A rear anti-roll bar PLUS a larger front anti-roll bar will help with handling & winds. (Must do together). Be sure to have poly bar bushings. ADDCO or HELWIG.

After this, it’s the operator. Tires & brakes should always last 70k or better given quality components.

(That many years and miles it could use a little rejuvenation. I see that BLUE BEACON now has a Nashville location. Have them give itvthe classic wash, but with Acid & Alkaline solution on the underside. Major attention to the wheelwells and everything they can hit underneath. You can’t replicate results with pressure washer (chemistry).

This is better than using Dawn to strip old wax from paint. Glass will be perfect for a high quality rain repel product. Etc.

Once home paint wheelwells with semi-gloss black. And any other undercoating underneath. Go farther by removing wheels — mask brake lines, etc — and use gloss to paint axle and A-Arms.

This is a great start to a serious detail. You or a pro hired. Then tires/shocks/bushings and antiroll will seem a better choice.

Paint on a truck is easy. It’s the underside that throws that off).



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[CapriRacer]

Originally Posted by rmay635703

https://www.tirebusiness.com/article...ing-tire-specs

Funny to think they were only getting 3500 miles from a tire

Allow me to both explain and give a similar story.

In the early 1990's. (The news article is dated 1995!), I participated in a conference call between Ford and Florida Bell (or whatever the phone company was in southern Florida). I was the technical rep for one of Ford's tire suppliers.

They were purchasing new E-150 vans for their service trucks and in southern Florida they were getting less that 5,000 miles on the tires coming from the vehicle assembly plant. This was a drop from the 7,500 miles previously.

They explained that they knew that their trucks were being used for installing phone lines for new housing so that meant new concrete pavement and many turns relative to the amount of miles they drove - and that the new pavement had sharp shells in the limestone aggregate. Those 2 things were causing wear issues.

It wasn't that the wear was fast, but that the wear was faster than before. Their expectations weren't high to begin with.

They were told that they could specify the tire they wanted since they were buying so many vehicles (They didn't know that!).

Interestingly, the referenced news article specified moving from 6 ply to 8 ply tires - which not only indicates that the reporter was talking to someone low on the totem pole as the proper terminology is Load Range C to Load Range D - but also missed that fact that they compared different brands. It's quite possible the Load Range C tires were OE and had reduced treadwear properties due to rolling resistance requirements - the same problem Florida Bell was having!

[CapriRacer]

Oh, and the issue of fuel economy between LT tires vs P type tires:

Because LT tires carry so much more load than a same sized P type tires, the tread compound has to have increased compression set resistance.

Ya' see, rubber is a visco-elastic material - which means that under stress it can flow - and since LT tires are subjected to higher stresses …….. That means that the rubber compounds used in LT tires have worse hysteresis - worse RR - and while the hysteretic properties can be improved by sacrificing wear and/or traction, they can't be better for LT tires without sacrificing compression set properties.

[Shaneajanderson]

Originally Posted by CapriRacer

Allow me to both explain and give a similar story.

In the early 1990's. (The news article is dated 1995!), I participated in a conference call between Ford and Florida Bell (or whatever the phone company was in southern Florida). I was the technical rep for one of Ford's tire suppliers.

They were purchasing new E-150 vans for their service trucks and in southern Florida they were getting less that 5,000 miles on the tires coming from the vehicle assembly plant. This was a drop from the 7,500 miles previously.

They explained that they knew that their trucks were being used for installing phone lines for new housing so that meant new concrete pavement and many turns relative to the amount of miles they drove - and that the new pavement had sharp shells in the limestone aggregate. Those 2 things were causing wear issues.

It wasn't that the wear was fast, but that the wear was faster than before. Their expectations weren't high to begin with.

They were told that they could specify the tire they wanted since they were buying so many vehicles (They didn't know that!).

Interestingly, the referenced news article specified moving from 6 ply to 8 ply tires - which not only indicates that the reporter was talking to someone low on the totem pole as the proper terminology is Load Range C to Load Range D - but also missed that fact that they compared different brands. It's quite possible the Load Range C tires were OE and had reduced treadwear properties due to rolling resistance requirements - the same problem Florida Bell was having!

5,000 miles!! What in the blazes were they using, bicycle tires? The cheasiest junk chinesium garbage tires easily last 30,000 miles if they are even semi kind of cared for. What were these guys doing to wear them out that fast?

[CapriRacer]

Originally Posted by Shaneajanderson

5,000 miles!! What in the blazes were they using, bicycle tires? The cheasiest junk chinesium garbage tires easily last 30,000 miles if they are even semi kind of cared for. What were these guys doing to wear them out that fast?

Most tire wear occurs in cornering. Drive in a straight line and there is hardly any wear. For example, local delivery trucks don't get as good of wear mileage as city to city trucks. What both the Post Office and Florida Bell were doing was on the extreme end of making a lot of turns in relatively short trips.

I've seen the same tires get as little as 10K, and over 100K on the same type of vehicle and the difference was what service the vehicles were used for - local delivery vs city to city.

[Shaneajanderson]

Originally Posted by CapriRacer

Most tire wear occurs in cornering. Drive in a straight line and there is hardly any wear. For example, local delivery trucks don't get as good of wear mileage as city to city trucks. What both the Post Office and Florida Bell were both doing was on the extreme end of making a lot of turns in relatively short trips.

I've seen the same tires get as little as 10K, and over 100K on the same type of vehicle and the difference was what service the vehicles were used for - local delivery vs city to city.

intriguing. I guess intuitively it makes sense that doing a lot of cornering in town would wear them out faster, but I never would have guessed it would be that much faster.

[CapriRacer]

Originally Posted by Shaneajanderson

intriguing. I guess intuitively it makes sense that doing a lot of cornering in town would wear them out faster, but I never would have guessed it would be that much faster.

Shortly after the conference call mentioned above, I calculated the turns-per-mile for my commute to work - about 1 turn per mile.

I just calculated what the mail carrier would do around the subdivision: 8 turns per mile.

We're talking orders of magnitude differences.

So, you may ask, how do tire manufacturers deal with this phenomenon relative to their mileage warranties.

It's a matter of the risk. How much is it going to cost to warrant the mileage on a tire at one level, compared to another? Just an FYI, the risk (cost) is generally so low it hardly matters. It's a wonder that tire mileage warranties aren't all outrageous.

[Shaneajanderson]

Originally Posted by CapriRacer

Shortly after the conference call mentioned above, I calculated the turns-per-mile for my commute to work - about 1 turn per mile.

I just calculated what the mail carrier would do around the subdivision: 8 turns per mile.

We're talking orders of magnitude differences.

So, you may ask, how do tire manufacturers deal with this phenomenon relative to their mileage warranties.

It's a matter of the risk. How much is it going to cost to warrant the mileage on a tire at one level, compared to another? Just an FYI, the risk (cost) is generally so low it hardly matters. It's a wonder that tire mileage warranties aren't all outrageous.

That makes sense looking at turns per mile.

As far as tire mileage warranties, how does that actually work? I've never had to try to use one, but I've heard of guys who buy a 60,000 mile tire and drive nothing but scoria gravel and burn them up after 20k getting denied warranty because of it. Is it one of those warranties that actually means nothing at all?

[CapriRacer]

Originally Posted by Shaneajanderson

That makes sense looking at turns per mile.

As far as tire mileage warranties, how does that actually work? I've never had to try to use one, but I've heard of guys who buy a 60,000 mile tire and drive nothing but scoria gravel and burn them up after 20k getting denied warranty because of it. Is it one of those warranties that actually means nothing at all?

Well, there are some stipulations concerning the mileage warranty that tend to trip people up. The most common is uneven and irregular wear. That kind of wear is caused by the vehicle - and even though the alignment might be "in spec", the spec is not designed to give good tire wear.

The net effect is that only a small percentager of the tires sold will be in a position to meet ALL the stipulations.

[Shaneajanderson]

Originally Posted by CapriRacer

Well, there are some stipulations concerning the mileage warranty that tend to trip people up. The most common is uneven and irregular wear. That kind of wear is caused by the vehicle - and even though the alignment might be "in spec", the spec is not designed to give good tire wear.

The net effect is that only a small percentager of the tires sold will be in a position to meet ALL the stipulations.

That's kind of what I was thinking. Seeing the camber they put on the back of (stock) cars these days blows my mind.