New tires for a new season
For the 2010 tire season, green is the new black.
Your tires will still be black in colour, but otherwise green is in, from the manufacturing stage to the end product that gets bolted on the customer’s car.
The manufacturing end is an easily definable process and goal: Yokohama has one tire plant in which everything that goes in comes out as part of the product. Zero waste.
But before manufacturing comes product development. Creating the chemical formula that improves tire gas mileage is a much harder task.
The numbers engineers work with are so small that improvements in each area are all tiny. But linking tiny improvements together can get results.
A vehicle’s rolling resistance is a huge waste of energy, with about 15 to 20 per cent of that due to tires. To make improvements in the 15 to 20 per cent share of rolling resistance, the tire maker must create a huge internal improvement.
That is what is happening in this latest generation of tires. But manufacturers are not only reducing friction for going straight down the road, they are building in improvements in friction for cornering grip.
Michelin LTX MS2
This is Michelin’s rethink of its best-selling light truck/SUV tire. It features significant improvements in both wet grip and tread life — typically at odds with each other. The tire earns Michelin’s “Green X” rating.
This highway and moderate off-road tire has added another steel belt internally to give it a better footprint and more strength. There are also eight per cent more sipes for biting edges, and more silica for wet grip. The sipes are a new design that lets them to support each other under load — less squirm means less friction loss. That, combined with the stiffer footprint, allows Michelin to claim a tread life 32,000 km longer than the two main competitors in this segment.
At the Michelin Laurens Proving Grounds, journalists tested against two main rivals in this category. The Michelin LTX MS2 consistently stopped just over two metres shorter from 80 km/h under wet conditions.
Overall, the tire has a rugged off road look, but rides like a touring tire when on pavement. In short the Michelin, stops quicker and lasts longer, a great combination.
Bridgestone RE-11
This Bridgestone RE-11 is the first cousin of this company’s Formula 1 racing efforts. It has a similar internal package of belts and supports to give the perfect footprint for very high cornering grip. Since Bridgestone does not make a street legal R-compound tire for sports cars, this tire is its top dog for grip on street cars.
Surprisingly it has a very good ride, a rarity in this class of tire. Another plus is lack of noise. While its pavement sounds would never be mistaken for a touring tire, the RE-11 produces lower noise levels than most of its rivals.
When the corners get tight, it has huge outer tread blocks to take up the side load. These blocks are incredibly stiff, which insures excellent feedback through the steering on what is happening at the asphalt level. The grip levels are high enough to make the average driver back off.
Water is handled exceptionally well. The two large central grooves plus a smaller groove handle water evacuation far better than average for this class. Under cornering load, the smaller angled grooves come into play to help get the wet out. If anything, Bridgestone has skewed the design of the RE-11 to the wet side, to give drivers confidence.
With a wear rating of 180, this made-in-Japan RE-11 should prove to provide great grip level for a long time.
Pirelli Scorpion Verde All Season
Pirelli’s Scorpion line has long been popular with high-end light trucks and SUVs. The new Verde (Green) version of the tire increases performance slightly in all grip categories. This is done through a thorough redesign of the tread blocks and the rubber formulas. Again silica, that magic substance, has been used to bond the rubber molecules in a better way to increase tread life and reduce the weight of the tire by about eight per cent. That weight reduction and a lowered rolling resistance means better fuel economy and lower CO2 emissions.
The company’s strategy for its tires is to increase the green proportion from the current 20 per cent to 40 per cent by 2011.
Pirelli Trofeo
This tire will come to our markets this year as the dominator of Pirelli’s tire line, a new R-compound street legal track tire. This rubber comes from the factory where Pirelli’s race tires for Grand-Am are born.
It abandons the almost total slick pattern with a few squiggly grooves for wet weather of its Corsa line. Now the tire has some circumferential grooves, which will no doubt increase its wet-weather capability.
These R-compound tires may not last long when run on the track, but their grip levels will provide more fun than any ride at Canada’s Wonderland.
Toyo Versado CUV
This is the newest member of the premium touring tire family. Designed for crossovers/SUVs and light trucks, the Versado CUV has all of Toyo’s latest technology rolled into one tire. A remix of the traditional rubber compound, a new carcass design and stiffer ribs all contribute to give this tire the best fuel economy of any Toyo tire to date.
To make sure this rubber will not feel out of place on luxury SUV’s, Toyo has worked hard to create a smooth easy ride with very little noise. Thousands of vertical serrations in the tread groove edges reduce noise by a large factor. Air displacement from the grooves as a tire turns is one of the biggest road noise generators. This high-tech solution deals with that very effectively.
The tire is asymmetrical. It’s available in 25 sizes to fit 17-inch through 20-inch diameter wheels.
Toyo Extensa A/S
In a continuing expansion of its tire lineup, Toyo has created the Extensa in an S- and T-rated all-season and an H-rated performance version as a “value” line. Toyo certainly has the goods in its mostly high-end tires so a less costly version is a good addition to the line.
The Extensa A/S has a symmetric, non-directional tread design, which allows for cross rotation for a longer tread life. The tire is a product of Toyo Tires’ Tmode computer design technology, which tries for a balance of comfort, handling and durability.
The shoulder blocks are connected for less squirm. The tire’s two steel belts are capped with a nylon spiral wound cap for a smoother ride, a rarity at this price point. Rain is handled in a straightforward four-groove arrangement.
Available in a wide range of fitments for 13- through 17-inch wheels, the Extensa A/S will work with most cars and minivans. Treadwear, Temperature and Traction ratings for S- and T-speed rated tires are each 620, A and B; the H-rated item is 360, A and A.
The H-rated Extensa HP is more interesting in its tread pattern. It is unidirectional and has interlocking tread blocks. Interlocking blocks can take more of a load under cornering. Again, four grooves do the wet work, but in this tire the grooves have the “Silent Wall” technology: little vertical striations inside the grooves break up tire noise. A luxury feature in a value tire.
Yokohama ENVigor
The ENVigor is an all-new all-season high-performance tire. It’s new in two ways: tire design and manufacturing material. Fewer harmful chemicals are used in this tire, which uses recycled rubber instead of all-new goo. That’s a step forward.
The ENVigor tread is said to have been computer-optimized for grip without increasing wear. They have done so well at this by using a silica-rich compound and recycled rubber, and making the tire lighter, resulting in 18 per cent lower rolling resistance than its predecessor, the AVID H4S. All of this translates in to better gas mileage and a tread life rating of 560, very high for an H-, V-, W-speed rated tire.
Customers focused on the environment get the added assurance that ENVigor is made without the use of aromatic naphthenic oils considered harmful to health.
The new line makes its debut this spring with an extensive selection of popular sizes: a total of 69, for 15-inch to 20-inch applications. Speed ratings span H to W. Tires from the ENVigor line are backed by a five-year, 110,000 km warranty.
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