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Old April 2nd 17, 06:08 PM posted to alt.home.repair,rec.autos.tech,ca.driving
Jonas Schneider
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Posts: 20
Default I used to buy tires from TireRack - now SimpleTire (how can they do it?)

On Sat, 1 Apr 2017 22:17:13 -0600, rbowman > wrote:

>> HINT: I know how to pick the best tire in that bunch - and it's not by
>> price alone.

>
> So enlighten us.


As I explained to Ed Pawlowski, my process may differ from yours or his,
so, I only present my process as a logical process based on an
understanding of the specs and the various tradeoffs, where you can't go
wrong in my process because you throw out all tires that don't meet OEM
specs (if you believe in the OEM specs, which I do for my tires).

Once you've whittled down the selection to tires that all meet or exceed
the OEM specs, then you rank them in the order of trusted specification
that you care about most.

If you care most about "road noise", then you're a gonner because you're
not going to get that as a reliable spec, even if you read all the
boy-racer reviews on the planet.

Likewise, if you care about marketing appeal (e.g., whatever marketing
claims you'll get, whether that be blonds smiling at you while you drive by
or the safety of not running over the neighbor's kids), you're not gonna be
able to reliably rank the tires.

However, if you care about, say, wet traction, well then, you're in luck.
The specs on the side of the tire tell you the wet straight-line traction
coefficient on both asphalt and concrete.

Also the treadwear gives you the average dry traction coefficient in the
ratio of 2.25 divided by the treadwear raised to the 0.15 power.

So that gives you three separate traction coefficients to rank the tiers by
first.

Let's say you second-most care about safety, given that all tires sold in
the USA are safe. Some are better built than others, where there are a
bunch of ratings which give you construction information.

There's the speed rating from the manufacturer (e.g., W versus V), which is
really a heat-generation-and-dissipating rating, and there's the
temperature rating (e.g., A vs B) which is similar but measured by the
government. There's also the load range (e.g., 99 versus 95), and the ply
rating (e.g., XL).

And then there's the price which can offset any of those based on your
current feeling about dollars.

If money is no object, then you can get the AA A A 100 XL 105W tires, but
if money is critical to you, then you still can't go wrong with AA A A 500
99V rated tires.

Once you list the tires by spec that you care about, there is almost never
a dead-heat tied, but if there were a tie, I'd use the "soft stuff" as the
tie breaker, e.g., white sidewalls, or treadwear warranty, or the smile of
the salesman or the taste of their free coffee.

It's the same method as you choose brake pads by the way, or motor oil, or
differential lube, or any commodity that has technical merit.

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