Some More Facts About Car Tyres
Admittedly we spend quite a lot of time on this blog talking about car tyres, so you may have picked up a few tyre facts already. Well, we think tyres are fairly amazing, so we thought we’d throw a few more facts your way. No matter how big your car is, it is supported by four patches of rubber each not much bigger than your footprint. Amazing!
- Tyres are made of various different layers of fabric called plies. These are coated with rubber to help the components bond together and to minimise air loss. Most tyres will have two.
- Most modern car tyres are radial tyres. This means the cords run perpendicular to the tyres’ treads.
- In order to bond all the various components together, the not quite finished product needs to be vulcanised. This involves running the tyres through a curing machine which bonds all the different components together as well as mould all the markings and traction patterns on to the surfaces.
- Aquaplaning occurs when the tyre’s treads can’t disperse the water quickly enough to maintain a grip on the road. The vehicle therefore skids along the surface of the water, giving you very little control over the direction the car is going.
- To work out the size of your car tyres’ footprint, you need to know that the area is approximately equal to the car’s weight divided by the tyre pressure. For a 2-tonne car, that means the footprint of each tyre is about 7 inches wide by 4.75 inches long. Not very big at all, and remember, while the brakes work to stop the wheels turning, it is the friction between the tyres’ footprint and the road that will actually stop your car moving.
- Under-inflating car tyres bends their structure out of shape and will cause them to wear unevenly, and quicker than they ought to. It also generates more heat, increasing the risk of a blow out.
- Over-inflating a tyre is just as dangerous as under-inflating it. You end up with a smaller contact patch between the rubber and the road, giving you less control of the car.
- Michelin have been working on a new invention – the airless tyre, also known as a ‘tweel’ as it combines the tyre and the wheel into one.