6 Tips You Should Know About Tyre Sidewalls

1. 6 Tips You Should Know About Tyre Sidewalls Did you know you don’t even have to open your vehicle manual to know about your tyre information? All the information is right there in your tyre sidewalls, but if you look at it, you will notice it's just numbers and some random letters. So, how could you decode these tyre codes? Don’t need to worry, we've got you. In this blog post, we are going to discuss some basic tips you should know about your tyre sidewalls. Traction Grade Next, we have the traction grade. Here you can see this tyre has an "AA." There are four categories: AA being the highest, A, B, and C (C being the lowest). The only thing that this is measuring and giving you information about is wet stopping in a straight line. Only about 15 percent oftyres coventry get this AA rating. 77 percent of tyres are in the A rating, about 7 percent with a B rating, and only four lines of tyres have a C rating. I was curious, what are those four lines of tyres? I did a bit of research and found that two Mickey Thompson street radials were on that list, which are essentially street-legal drag tyres with basically no tread pattern at all. It makes sense why they were toward the bottom—they're going for a drag tyre, not one that's going to have a lot of grip in the rain.

2. Tyre Composition and Materials We have the tyre composition and materials. This is pretty general information right here, but it will give you the number of tread plies as well as what materials are used to make them. Now, you may have noticed the foam inside this tyre. That's actually what this "Acoustic" label is referring to. A rolling tyre causes regions of air pressure to vary within the tyre itself, and these varying air pressure regions create vibration. That vibration is audible, and it transmits that vibration to the car. By placing this foam within the tyre, you actually help to reduce that vibration and noise, the primary benefit being that it's a quieter ride. Treadwear Grades Next, we have the treadwear grades. This number indicates the wear rating of a tyre the higher this number (in this example it's 300), the longer the tread will last. The lower the number, the faster you're going to have this tread wear down. For example, a treadwear rating of 300 means it will last three times longer than a rating of 100. 200 would last half as long as 400. But the thing to keep in mind is that this rating is manufacturer-specific. You can't compare two different tyre brands' treadwear ratings. They may have the exact same treadwear rating but wear at different rates. It's only an internal rating. For example, a 600 will last six times longer than a 100 within the same brand. Temperature Grade Next, we have the temperature grade. There are only three grades: A, B, and C. A has the greatest resistance to building up heat, C has the least, and C is the minimum requirement that all passenger tyres must meet. You may also see "Outside" or "Rotation" labeled on the outside of a tyre. "Rotation" would give you a direction meaning that's the direction the tyre is supposed to rotate when you're mounting it. You can tell looking at this tyre right here, from these larger, fat tread blocks, that you're going to want this on the outside. Manufacturer-Specific Markings Now, you may also have tyres that are unique to one specific vehicle. Michelin Pilot Sport 4S is a generic tyre that could be used on many different vehicles, but this "TO" here indicates that this was built specifically for Tesla. This is specific to the Tesla Model 3 Performance, and there will be different labels out there for different tyres unique aspects that Tesla wanted designed into this tyre exactly to fit their vehicle.

3. For example, you may see the letters "N0," indicating a Porsche tyre. The winter tyres that I actually have on my Tesla are N0, indicating that it is a Porsche tyre. It's actually designed for the Porsche Cayman GT4, but it happens to be the exact same size and load rating that I need for my Tesla, so it works out great on the Model 3 as well. DOT Code and Identification All right, we're on the home stretch! Here's what we've got left: "D.O.T." means that this meets Department of Transportation safety requirements for on-road use. If a tyre does not have this on it, it is not legal for use on public roads. Moving right along, we have "4M" this is a plant code telling the manufacturer where this tyre was built. You then have "7X," a manufacturer code for the tyre size. We have another manufacturer code here, which is used to identify the tyre. If, in the future, they found a defect with a certain batch of tyres, they could issue a recall, and they would know which tyres to recall based on this label right here, knowing when this tyre was created and what batch of Cheap Tyres Coventry it was created with. Then here is actually the timestamp of when this tyre was manufactured: 31 being the week of the year, and 18 being the year. So, "31 18" means this tyre was made in the 31st week of 2018. Conclusion So, hopefully, this has covered the majority of the markings, the major ones that you will see across all different tyre brands. There will be unique cases and individual tyres out there that have specific markings from their individual manufacturer, but hopefully, this covers the major ones. Thank you all so much for watching, and if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave those below.