Tyre Tread Patterns and Profiles
The tyre tread pattern is primarily there to improve handling on wet roads while not compromising too much on dry handling and braking ability.
The best tyres for gripping dry, flat roads are soft rubber slicks. Except for odd occasions and racetracks, road surfaces are rarely dry, flat or smooth. This means that general road tyres need to be able to handle a variety of surfaces and hard wearing. A harder rubber compound is used to make the tyre last longer and cope with more abrasive road surfaces. In order to grip the road and provide traction; the tyre surface needs a series of grooves or channels to allow water to move away from the tyre - road contact area and resist aquaplaning.
A wide tyre and narrow tyre will not disperse water in exactly the same way. Similarly, a tread pattern that disperses water when your car is travelling in a straight line may struggle to maintain grip when handling the lateral cornering forces.
Tyre manufacturers have invested millions of pounds in research to find the optimal tyre design for road performance and road noise reduction. This has lead to tyre designers moving away from the traditional block pattern tyres towards high performance tyres with circumferential grooves and tread bands. These modern tyre patterns are designed to offer different noise and handling characteristics across the tread of a tyre. Looking at these modern tyres the patterns are often asymmetric and directional.
Tyre Noise - Reducing Road Noise
Tyre patterns can dramatically increase or decrease the noise a tyre makes while driving. Most noise is caused by the leading edge of the tyre block as it comes into contact with the road surface and the trailing edge springing back as it rotates away from the road surface. Thus, more blocks of tyre rubber and the noisier your tyres will become.
Low Profile Tyres and Comfort
The fashion for modern cars is to have large wheels with low profile tyres. Larger often means larger brakes and a better braking system performance. For mainly practical and aesthetic reasons; by designing larger wheels the car manufactures specify thin or low profile tyres to fit within design constraints of the overall wheel diameter.
Low profile tyres mean less cushioning and dampening of the road conditions. So, a modern car designed and supplied with large rims and low profile tyres should already have a suspension system designed to deal with the harsher ride created by the low profile tyres.
Large Wheel Car Modifications
However if an older car has its standard wheels replaced with large alloy wheels - low profile tyres then it will almost certainly give a harsher ride as the original suspension will not be designed to compensate. If driving on mainly good road surfaces then this may not be much of an issue but upgrading the suspension system should be considered.
Uneven Tyre Wear Caused by Poor Wheel Alignment
If your tyres have not worn evenly then we can investigate possible causes and offer a wheel alignment service to make sure your replacement tyres last as long as possible.
Firestone Tyres
- Firestone Cv 2000
- Firestone Cv 3000
- Firestone F 560
- Firestone F 570
- Firestone F 580
- Firestone F 580 Fs
- Firestone F 580 M+s
- Firestone F 590
- Firestone F 590 Fs
- Firestone F 630
- Firestone F 680 Fs
- Firestone F 690
- Firestone F 700
- Firestone F 700 Fs
- Firestone F 702 Fs
- Firestone Fd 600
- Firestone Fh 680
- Firestone Fh 680 Fs
- Firestone Fh 700
- Firestone Fh 700 Fs
- Firestone Fh 702 Fs
- Firestone Fh Sz 80
- Firestone Fs 400
- Firestone Fw 930
- Firestone Multihawk
- Firestone Sz 40
- Firestone Sz 80
- Firestone Tmp 3000
- Firestone Tsp 3000
- Firestone Tz 100
- Firestone Tz 200
- Firestone Tz 200 Fs
- Firestone Vanhawk
- Firestone Winterforce
- Firestone Winterhawk