There are several different regulatory bodies which impact manufacturers and others related to the tire industry. They are as follows:

DOT – United States Department of Transportation. This is the U.S. governmental body authorized by Congress and administered by the United States Secretary of Transportation to establish and regulate transportation safety in the United States. Their mission is to serve the United States by ensuring a fast, safe, efficient, accessible and convenient transportation system that meets our vital national interests and enhances the quality of life of the American people, today and into the future.

NHTSA – National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration. An agency of the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government within the Department of Transportation, the NHTSA is tasked with regulating automotive safety in the United States. Their mission is to save lives, prevent injuries and reduce economic costs due to road traffic crashes, through education, research, safety standards and enforcement activity.

UTQG – Uniform Tire Quality Grading System. Established by the NHTSA, the UTQG is a rating system for comparing the performance of tires. The rating is composed of 3 components: Treadwear, Traction, and Temperature. The regulation requires that tires be labeled (or branded) with these ratings.

T&RA – Tire and Rim Association. Founded in 1903, the T&RA is a voluntary standardizing body for the tire, rim, valve and allied parts industry for the United States. The T&RA’s primary purpose is to establish and promulgate interchangeability standards for tires, rims, valves and allied parts. Of particular interest, this organization publishes key tire dimension standards, key tire valve dimension standards, key rim contour dimension standards, and load and inflation standards. This organization is essentially the North American equivalent of the ETRTO.

ETRTO – European Tyre and Rim Technical Organization. The ETRTO exists to specify and harmonize sizes of rims (i.e. engineering dimensions, load/pressure characteristics, operating guidelines) and their associated pneumatic tyres (note that tyres is the European spelling where tires is common for North America) across the European Union. ETRTO sizes apply to rims for vehicles of all types, motorized or otherwise, including bicycles. The great advantage of ETRTO sizing is that it is unambiguous. Prior to the ETRTO standards, nominal dimensions were used which were interpreted in different ways by different manufacturers and countries, thus creating a problem for the consumer. This organization is essentially the European equivalent of the T&RA.

JATMA – Japanese Automobile Tire Manufacturers Association. Representing the tire manufacturers of Japan, JATMA is the Japanese standards organization for tires, rims and valves. It is the equivalent of the ETRTO and TR&A.

TREAD Act – Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation Act. The TREAD Act is a U.S. Federal Law enacted in fall 2000 which was drafted in response to fatalities related to Ford Explorers fitted with Firestone tires. Influenced by automobile and tire manufacturers as well as consumer safety advocates, the TREAD Act sets standards for testing and the reporting of information related to products involved with transportation such as cars and tires. It has 3 major components. First, it requires that vehicle manufacturers report to the NHTSA when conducting a safety recall or other safety campaign in a foreign country. Second, it mandates that vehicle manufacturers report information related to defects, reports of injury or death related to its products, as well as other relevant data in order to comply with Early Warning requirements. Third, it establishes criminal liability for any vehicle manufacturer intentionally violating these reporting requirements if a safety-related defect has subsequently caused death or serious bodily injury.

RFID tags – Radio Frequency Identification Tags. Commonly used in a variety of different applications, within the tire industry RFID tags are passive transponders affixed to the inside of the tire for purposes of automatic identification. RFID tags are used by auto assemblers to identify tires at the point of assembly to the vehicle. They’re also used by fleet operators as part of tire maintenance programs. RFID tags are encoded with various types of data, including the manufacturer’s name, location of manufacture, tire type, manufacturing date, and in some cases test data. Transponders can then remotely read this data automatically.

Modern technology has allowed for the development of many innovative tire designs. Among those are Run-flat tires, which actually permit the tire to run safely with no air for a limited number of miles at a limited speed. These tires usually feature strong, load-supporting sidewalls.

The major disadvantage to Run-flat tires is that they are not allowed to be repaired when and if a puncture occurs. This is due to a warning issued by the tire manufacturers regarding the inability to determine the condition of the sidewall. After the puncture, the sidewall compacts rendering its state of condition unknown.

To review all the different Types of Tires, just click HERE.

Many vehicles carry a spare tire which is already mounted onto a wheel. Obviously, the spare tire is intended to be used as a temporary replacement in the event of a blowout or flat tire. However, if the spare tire is of the same size and type as your other 4 tires, it can be put into regular use when your rotate your tires.

Mini-spares or space-saving-spares are also very commonly used spare tires. These are smaller than normal tires in order to save on cost, weight, gas mileage and the space required for mounting and storing. Mini-spares have a short life expectancy and relatively low speed rating. They are intended for emergencies and should be used under those circumstances only.

To review all the different Types of Tires, just click HERE.

High Performance tires are just that – tires which are designed to be used at higher speeds while offering a more sporty driving style. High Performance tires feature a softer rubber compound designed to improve traction, particularly when cornering at high speeds. Of course, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. The trade off of the softer rubber is shorter tread life.

High Performance tires can sometimes sacrifice wet or adverse weather handling due to their shallower water channels (or grooves). They are constructed this way in order to maximize the rubber tread surface area for dry weather performance. The goal is to have a greater portion of the rubber tire in contact with the road. The ability to provide a high level of performance on both dry and wet pavement varies significantly among tire manufacturers, and in fact, even among tire lines (models) of the same manufacturer. This is specifically an area of active tire research and development, as well as marketing.

To review all the different Types of Tires, just click HERE.

Heavy Duty Truck

Heavy Duty tires are the tire sizes most commonly used on vehicles such as dump trucks, commercial freight trucks, and passenger buses. These tires are often referred to as truck or bus tires. Truck tires are sub-categorized into specialties according to the vehicle position such as steering, trailer and drive axle. Each Truck tire type is designed with the tread patterns, reinforcements, and material compounds that best optimize the tire’s performance.

Off-The-Road (OTR)

The Off-The-Road or OTR tire classification includes extremely large tires, such as those for construction vehicles, large mining trucks, wheel loaders, backhoes, trenchers, graders and similar. OTR tire construction is either bias or radial, although the industry trends have resulted in an increased use of radial. Bias OTR tires are constructed with a high number of reinforcing plies to withstand high loads and severe service conditions.

Over the past several years, a significant increase in worldwide commodity prices has led to shortages of new tires. As a result, large and expensive trucks can be sidelined due to lack of tires. This results in significant lost revenues (due to lost productivity) for a variety of business, one of the prime examples being mining.

The end result of this chain of events is to place great emphasis on recycling worn OTR tires. Today a new OTR tire can be priced at $50,000+, whereas retread tires (which have 80% of the life of a new tire) can be purchased for approximately half the price.

Unfortunately retreading an OTR tire is extremely labor intensive. The process begins with the retreading technician placing the old tire in a buffing machine to remove what remains of the old tread. This is followed by skiving, which is the hand removal of material which is missed during the buffing process. The technician then fills holes in the tire with rubber and applies a cement gum adhesive to the entire core. The tire is then placed on a machine which applies the new tread, making it ready for use.

Agricultural

The agricultural tire classification includes tires used on farm vehicles, typically tractors as well as specialty vehicles such as harvesters. Agricultural vehicle tires have extremely deep, widely spaced lugs to allow the tire traction on dirt and mud. In swampy environments, high flotation tires are used as soil compaction is of concern. High flotation tires feature large footprints with low inflation pressures.

Racing

The Racing tire classification includes tires for top-fuel dragsters, oval-track racers, drift racers, extreme off-road racing, jet-powered trucks, and monster trucks. This classification also includes large-market race tires for NASCAR, Formula One, IndyCar, rallying, MotoGP and similar. Racing tires are highly specialized according to the vehicle and race track conditions, although they are often not legal for normal highway use. Because of the intense competition of the racing industry, race tires are specially engineered for specific race tracks according to surface conditions, track temperature and cornering loads. Racing tires are often designed to meet minimum weight targets; tires for a 500 mile race may only run 100 miles before necessitating a pit stop and tire change. Several of the larger tire manufacturers invest heavily in race tire development as part of the company’s marketing strategy. This serves as an advertising channel to attract customers, not to mention increased brand recognition.

Industrial

The Industrial tire classification is a bit of a catch-all category. It includes pneumatic and non-pneumatic tires for specialty construction and industrial equipment such as fork lift trucks and skid loaders.

Bicycle

The Bicycle tire classification includes all forms of bicycle tires, including mountain bike tires, road race tires, snow tires and tubular tires. Lance Armstrong’s success at The Tour de France helped this industry gain largely in popularity in the United States. In many other parts of the world, bicycles are the primary method of travel. Bicycle travel remains popular in several European countries including the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

Aircraft

Aircraft tires are designed to withstand extremely heavy loads for very short durations. Aircraft tire tread patterns are normally designed to facilitate stability in potentially high crosswind conditions. They’re also designed to channel water away in order to prevent hydroplaning, and for braking effect. Aircraft tires are usually inflated with nitrogen or helium in order to minimize expansion and contraction due to the extreme changes in ambient temperature and pressure experienced during flight. Dry nitrogen expands at the same rate as other dry atmospheric gases, but common compressed air sources may contain moisture. This moisture has the effect of increasing the expansion rate with temperature.

Aircraft tires generally operate at high pressures, up to 200 psi for commercial airlines and even higher for business jets. Tests of airline aircraft tires have shown that they are able to sustain pressures of maximum 800 psi before bursting. During a pressurization test the tires have to be filled with water, instead of nitrogen or helium. This is to prevent the testing room and building from exploding as a result of the energy generated when the tire bursts.

Aircraft tires also include heat fuses which are designed to melt at a certain temperature. Aircraft tires often overheat if maximum braking is applied during a rejected takeoff or an emergency landing. The fuses provide a safer failure mode that prevents tire explosions by deflating in a controlled manner. This has the end result of minimizing the damage to aircraft and objects in the surrounding environment.

The number of tires required for an aircraft increases with the weight of a plane. This allows the weight of the airplane to be more appropriately distributed.

Whether you’re driving a Honda CR-V, Toyota RAV4, Ford Escape, Chevy Tahoe or other SUV, the Sport Utility Vehicle has realized a huge growth in popularity over the years. Many owners enjoy the additional safety of driving a larger, taller vehicle in combination with the wide variety of applications for which an SUV can be successfully used.

As many SUV’s are capable of being driven on a wide variety of terrains…and in varying weather conditions…SUV tire maintenance becomes an integral part of a successful journey. The bottom line is that your SUV’s wheels and tires are important equipment which allows your SUV to get from Point A to Point B, so you need to care for them properly.

Of course, the functions of your SUV’s wheels and tires go beyond just simply getting you around. They are also critical components to the overall appearance of your vehicle and, with proper care, are also capable of improving your performance. If you take the time to do the right things you can rest assured that you’ll increase your SUV’s value.

Keeping your SUV cleaned by taking it to your local car wash is one idea. In this regard, you get what you pay for. For five dollars or so, you should be able to run your SUV through a 3-minute automatic car wash. This will do a reasonable job of getting off a good bit of the basic dirt on your vehicle. A step up would be the full-service car wash which is armed with a series of employees ready to attack your car. This takes a tad long but is usually a very good solution for getting your car cleaned…but again, at a price. Full Service car washes often run $15 or more, depending upon your type of service. The cat’s meow is the full detailed cleaning. This can take up to a half-day and run $100 to $200 or more. The end result is SUV that is often cleaner than many owners could do by themselves.

The problem is that all these costs add-up. If you’re not careful, you could easily spend a good chunk of money just keeping your SUV clean on an annual basis. If you have the time and expertise, you can save yourself money and do a very good job of keeping your SUV’s wheel and tires clean…all as part of your basic wheel and tire maintenance. But before cleaning, it’s important to understand why your SUV’s tire and wheels get so dirty.

Regardless of the length of your most recent trip, dust particles are always evident in the air, slowly accumulating on your SUV’s wheels and tires. And that’s not to mention dirt, mud, road tars and different types of soil which will attract and attach to your SUV as you drive through those substances. Then let’s factor in some corrosive elements such as winter salt, snow, and acid rain. It’s easy to see that simply caring for your SUV’s tire and wheels regularly can save you some real headaches down the road.

So where do you start? Turns out that cleaning your Sport Utility Vehicle’s wheels and tires is actually the first step in properly washing your SUV. We first recommend avoiding the use of a generic car soap. Yes, we do realize there are many cleaning agents in the market today…many of which claim they can clean just about everything under the sun. The problem with generic cleaning agents is that they may contain a high level of acidity, which can damage your wheels. However acid-free cleaners are effective cleaning agents which are commonly used at most cash wash operations.

The fact of the matter is that you’ll be better served with a safe and effective wheel and tire cleaner – one that is specifically for wheels and tires (these can be found at a number of places such as your local auto parts or discount store).

As for the cleaning process itself:

• Check your tires for road dirt or mud. Remove as necessary with a hard object that will allow you to scrape away the debris without scratching your wheels or tires.
• Dilute your SUV wheel and tire cleaner of choice in a bucket of water.
• Begin with brushing your tires as the grooves of your tires are the most susceptible to mud and road tars. Take time to brush carefully and do the job right. Rinse and repeat as necessary.
• After cleaning the tires, proceed to your SUV’s wheels. Be sure to rinse the brush carefully to remove all the dirt.
• Brush your wheels in an UP and DOWN motion and the dirt will come right off.
• Rinse and repeat as necessary.

In closing, a common inquiry circulates around how often one should perform SUV tire maintenance. As you may realize, you don’t have to perform tire maintenance only when you wash you SUV. Like most things in life, the more you tend to them, the less you have to do to maintain. If you want your SUV to have beautiful tires and wheels for its life, we recommend performing SUV tire maintenance at a clip of once per month. Have fun and good luck!

There are several different types of Motorcycle tires. Let’s examine the most common types offered:

• Sport Touring – ideal for long straights, highways, and riding across the country. They’re generally not used for high cornering loads.
• Sport Street – terrific cornering tires, these tires are optimal for aggressive street riders. In lieu of being a longer lasting tire, Sport Street tires offer better traction during high speed cornering. Street and Sport Street tires have good traction when cold, but if warmed too much they can actually lose traction as their internal temperature rises.
• Track or Slick – these tires are intended for races or tracks. Track or Slick tires, also known as Racing Slicks, actually have more of triangular form which allows for a larger contact patch when cornering. However, the trade off of the triangular form is a smaller contact patch in the center, which causes the tire to develop a flat spot more quickly when riding on long straights. A center flat spot has almost no tread and therefore becomes dangerously slick in wet conditions. Racing slicks are also made of harder rubber compound and therefore need to be warmed to a higher internal temperature than street tires in order to provide similar traction. However, most street riding will not create a significant amount of friction to maintain the slicks optimal (and higher) temperature, particularly in colder climates or when riding in the spring or fall. It might not be a surprise to learn that these tires are known to have a shorter street life and are not recommended for street use by manufacturers.

To review all the different Types of Tires, just click HERE.

Tires are of critical importance to the performance, ride, comfort and safety of your automobile. Even with proper care of your vehicle and its tires, you’ll still have to replace your automobile’s tires multiple times during its life. Practicing good, disciplined tire maintenance is a must in terms of extending the life of your tires. However, you’ll potentially be fighting a losing battle if you opt for the most inexpensive pair on the rack.

Although many tires look the same, they perform and are priced much differently. Your local Tire Dealer often displays an overwhelming selection of tires for the average consumer. So how do you break this down to try and gather some understanding of the top tire manufacturers? Have no fear, the purpose of this article is to help you do just that. We’ll give you a flavor for some of the major tire manufacturers in the world. Let’s take a look at the Top Ten:

Bridgestone

Based in Tokyo, Bridgestone is the world’s largest tire and rubber company with products sold in 150 nations and territories throughout the world. In addition to tires, Bridgestone manufactures a broad range of diversified products, including industrial rubber and chemical products and sporting goods. Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations is headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. The corporation manufactures and markets the Bridgestone brands you are likely familiar with today, including Bridgestone, Firestone, Dayton and Fuzion tires. Bridgestone and Firestone tires are the leaders in quality among their brands.

Goodyear

Goodyear is the best selling tire manufacturer in North America and one of the top 3 best selling tire manufacturers in the world. Based in Akron, Ohio in 1898, Goodyear is a major supplier of original and replacement tires for most applications. In addition to the Goodyear line, the company owns Kelly-Springfield and 75% of Dunlop tires. Goodyear and Dunlop have often been leaders in quality among their peers.

Michelin

Based in Clermont-Ferrand, France, Michelin is the 2nd largest tire manufacturer in the world, behind only Bridgestone. Michelin, founded in 1891, operates its North American headquarters out of Greenville, South Carolina. As a global tire manufacturer, Michelin makes tires for almost all applications. Michelin was the first company to introduce the radial tire and continues to be a pioneer in tire technologies. In North America, Michelin owns the BFGoodrich and Uniroyal brand tire lines. Michelin tires are generally of very high quality in all-weather tests and offer many models with low rolling resistance and long tread life.

Continental

Based in Hanover, Germany, Continental is a distant fourth place in North American and Global sales, behind Bridgestone, Goodyear, and Michelin. Continental (internally referred to as Conti for short), sells a full complement of original and replacement tires. Additionally, Continental is a top automotive supplier of brake systems and various vehicle components. With U.S. tire operations headquartered in Lancaster County, S.C., the company offers the Continental and General tire brands. Historically General has been well known for high quality light-truck tires.

Pirelli

Based in Milan, Italy, Pirelli also has a United States tire manufacturing plant in Rome, Georgia. Pirelli’s bread and butter is the high-end market with tires commonly found on sports and luxury automobiles. The Pirelli Group business sectors also include broad-band solutions, real estate and environmental technologies. Although Pirelli has a stronger presence in Europe than in the United States, Pirelli is an original equipment supplier to the domestic car manufacturers on selected car models. The firm offers a full line of replacement tire models to fit most cars and light trucks. Pirelli tires are known for their high quality as it pertains to handling, dry and wet grip.

Yokohama

Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, Yokohama is a solid company with a global presence. With North America headquarters in Fullerton, California, Yokohama prides itself on targeting performance enthusiasts by placing emphasis on handling and dry and wet grip. Generally Yokohama tires are considered a very good choice for consumers who live in climates where winter driving is not a significant factor.

Cooper

With origins dating back to the early 20th century, Cooper is one of the few independent tire manufacturers in the United States. Based in Findlay, Ohio, Cooper Tires offers a wide variety of tires, including the Starfire, Avon and Mastercraft brand lines. Although Cooper tires can be found online, they are more commonly sold by independent dealers. Historically, Cooper is best known for their high quality light-truck tires.

Hankook

With headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Hankook also has North American headquarters in Wayne, New Jersey as well as a technical center in Akron, Ohio. Hankook is commonly used as original equipment on many foreign and domestic automobile nameplates. The firm offers a complete line of tires to fit most light trucks and domestic automobiles. Hankook is arguably best known for offering very good quality, all-weather performance at a reasonable price.

Kumho

This Korean tire manufacturer is also based in Seoul, Korea. Launched in 1960, Kumho entered the North American market in 1975 with the introduction of its Rancho Cucamonga, CA North American Headquarters. Kumho offers a full array of car and light truck tires. The Kumho tire is noted for excellent value and good all-weather performance.

Sumitomo

Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, Sumitomo also maintains a North American headquarters in East Norriton, PA. Established in 1919, Sumitomo is a reputable tire manufacturer which also owns Falken, Ohtsu and 25% of Dunlop tires. Sumitomo enjoys a reputation for innovative design, precision engineering and superior quality.

Many consumers are familiar with the term Retreaded Tires, although they don’t know much about them. Of course there’s a good reason for that. The retreaded tire industry is quite large and active for truck tires, but unfortunately much smaller and quieter for automobile tires. We’ll explain more in a moment, but let’s first take a closer look at retreads and their impact on the trucking industry.

As we just mentioned, the retreaded truck tire industry is healthy and growing. Virtually every commercial airline in the world routinely uses retreaded tires all their largest passenger jets. The retread tire use extends to school buses, municipal buses, trucks, taxis, race cars, and more! Retreads are also safely and regularly used on emergency vehicles such as fire engines and ambulances.

Many consumers don’t realize that retreaded truck tires represent a savings of more than $3 billion annually for truckers and trucking companies in North America alone.

For most fleets, tires represent the third largest line item in their operating budget, right after labor and fuel expense. The secret to success in managing a fleet is to achieve the lowest possible cost-per-operating-mile. To do that you must have a solid tire management program, which includes the use of quality retreads.

How commonly used are retreads within the trucking industry?  Very – in fact, they represent approximately 50% of all replacement tires for trucks. Retreaded tires are also as safe as comparable new tires, a fact proven by millions of users over many years. There are some differences though.

Retreads cost the trucking industry approximately 30% to 50% less than a corresponding new tire. In the exchange for the lower price, the only thing you yield is a lower tread life. On average, the life of a retread is about 75% of a new tire.

In today’s Green World, retreads are also getting attention for being environmentally friendly in comparison to their brand new peers. Tires are composed of petro-chemical products. Most people don’t realize that it actually takes 22 gallons of oil to manufacture a single new truck tire. Most of the oil is put to use in the casing, which is reused in the retreading process. As a result, only seven gallons of oil are used to produce a retreaded tire (a savings of 15 gallons per tire). Over time, it’s fair to expect retread technology to advance. The major retread suppliers annually invest millions of dollars in research and development.

Needless to say, this article reads like a fairly compelling sell for retread tires. So why aren’t retread tires more popular within the automobile industry? The primary issue circulates around expense. Automobile tires are considerably less expensive than truck tires. This amount of savings generated from retread automobile tires is considerably less than what is saved with truck tires. That lack of savings corresponds to less demand, which further corresponds to less availability. A secondary issue for some consumers is that retread automobile tires are not good choices for performance vehicles. They’ll do fine on a family car but not anything sporty.

All Season is a tire classification which essentially serves as a compromise between tires developed for summer driving and tires intended for use under winter conditions. For scientific reasons, the type of rubber and the tread pattern best suited for use under summer conditions is not capable of providing reliable performance on snow and ice. The All-Season tire represents a mixture of both. That being said, it’s important to note that the All-Season tire is neither an excellent summer tire nor an excellent winter tire.

Consumers love the all-season tire and as a result, they can be found literally just about everywhere. All-Seasons are commonly used as original and replacement equipment on automobiles throughout North America and Europe due to their convenience and adequate performance in most driving conditions.

All-Season tires can also be marked for mud and snow, but even so they’ll rarely have the Mountain/Snowflake emblem branded onto their sides. Keep in mind that an All-Season tire marked for mud and snow will most likely have poorer performance than a typical Mud and Snow tire.

To review all the different Types of Tires, just click HERE.