Let’s assume for the moment that there is an extra glob (How’s that for a technical term!) of rubber on the edge of the tread of a tire – and that the tire is mounted on a rim and inflated. If this glob has significant weight, it could cause a vibration in the vehicle. Let’s […]

What you should get from this page: You will hear various recommendations about tire aging: How many years, how bad are the cracks, from date of production or date of install, etc. This page will give you MY recommendations and the justification behind them. They may not be perfect, but at least you will know where they […]

This article is about how you can’t calculate the size of a tire’s footprint. That is, the inflation pressure is not equal to the average foot pressure and you can’t calculate the size of the footprint even if you know the load and the inflation pressure. Included are a ton of examples gleaned from the […]

This article is about tire noise – what causes it, how tire manufacturers reduce it, and how the consumer can reduce it. Tire Noise and Noise Testing: I am going to talk about how tire manufacturers try to reduce the noise that tires generate. That may help you select a tire that doesn’t generate as […]

There are several tire standardizing organizations throughout the world, but I am going to concentrate on just three of them: The Tire and Rim Association (TRA) – The US organization (The cover of the 2005 Yearbook is at the top of this page) The European Tyre and Rim Technical Organization (ETRTO) – Europe (The cover […]

This article is about how tire dimensions work. – how they are specified by the tire standardizing organizations. If you haven’t read up on Tire Standardizing Organizations, I suggest you do so. It will help you understand this page better: Barry’s Tire Tech – Tire Standardizing Organizations Also, Tire Rack has done such a good […]

This article explains how tire load tables work. They define the relationship between inflation pressure and load carrying capacity. If you haven’t read up on Tire Standardizing Organizations, I suggest you do so. It will help you understand this page better: Barry’s Tire Tech – Tire Standardizing Organizations Below is a scan from the 2005 […]

One of the fundamentals about tires is sizing. There is a lot of confusion concerning tire sizing and this is going to explain it in general terms and basically how it works. As a general rule, tire sizing describes the physical dimensions of a tire – but that is only part of the story. It […]