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I love a good conspiracy theory...
I work for a large OEM. We most definately develope the shit out of the tires we put on our cars. Although a specific tire line is not necesarrily designed for a vehicle, a particular tire size will be developed for a vehicle. Many aspects of the tire performace will be tuned until the OEM's development engineer is happy.
All tires fitted on OEM vehicles carry a number molded into the sidewall. This number describes most of the tire properties we design around. If you want the same properties on your new tire as the ones the engineers developed for your vehicle you would have to match this number when you replace tires. (This is not always possible.)
A side note about wear ratings. The numbers are pretty useless in the real world. The wear rating is determined by rolling a tire over a drum of specified diameter and surface characteristics. The amount of "miles" the tire travels before it wears to a certain level is compared to a "standard tire" and a rating is assigned. The problem is that rolling over a standard surface is very far from the real mechanisms of tire wear. The tire wear number is really only useful for a given tire internal carcuss. Once you switch carcusses (carci?) the relitve wear numbers are meaningless.
I am not a tire engineer, but have two friends who are. If you have specific questions that I can not answer, I can ask them.
By the way from speaking to both of the above mentioned people there general feeling is that Michilens are some of the best tires out there. The biggest drawback is the cost.
One last point. The tires on your car have been developed to trade off many different things. Tire wear. Lateral performance. Longitudinal performance. Tread noise. NVH transmissability and many other characteristics over a very wide variety of climates. (hot cold rain etc) the end tire is usually a compromise of many competing variables.
My main points are:
1) Tires are developed for specific vehicles.
2) Tire wear ratings are not very meaningful numbers.
posted by 198.208.22...
, Fri, 5 Apr 2002 07:32:18, Wed, 3 Apr 2002 22:48:52
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