Best Summer Tires
Best summer tires for cars. How to choose best summer tires? The sun’s rays melt the ice in the yard, the roads are clear of snow and ice, the birds are chirping merrily – spring is coming.
Spring for the driver is just before the time to change the summer tires on the car, the opportunity to change the driving style (from careful winter driving to a more relaxed one), time for picnics in nature, and so on. Today we will talk about the characteristics of summer tires, their varieties and how to choose summer tires and selection criteria.
Summer tires are all tires that are designed for driving on asphalt, asphalt-concrete, gravel, stone, soil, mud and sand surfaces in the warm season at an ambient temperature above +5ºС. From the definition of the term “summer rubber”, it is clear that this is a fairly universal name for all rubber that can be used in the warm months.
Conventionally, summer rubber is divided into the following groups:
rubber for roads with a hard surface (universal, rainy, dry);
off-road rubber (mud, sand, gravel);
universal rubber for all types of covering.
According to the type of construction of the frame, summer rubber is divided into radial and diagonal.
Radial tires have a frame design in which all threads (wires) are parallel to each other and do not cross.
Bias tires have a frame of crossed threads at an angle of 45º – 60º in the area of the middle running track.
According to the pattern of the tread, summer car tires are divided into asymmetric, directional and non-directional.
Asymmetric tires consist of two parts with different patterns and different characteristics. For example, the left part with a winter tread / the right with a summer one, or the left – rainy / right – dry. This type of tread makes the tire more versatile for different types of surfaces.
Tires with a directional tread speak for themselves by their name – they are rubber with a tread directed in the direction of the most frequent movement of the car (i.e. in front) for effective removal of water or dirt from the contact zone. The tread most often diverges from the middle to the right and left edges of the tire. Such rubber must have an arrow on the side – an indicator of the direction of rotation during installation. This type of rubber perfectly copes with aquaplaning at high speeds and provides high controllability in rainy weather. The tread works great when moving forward, but moving backwards or installing it in the reverse direction causes the opposite effect.
Tires with a non-directional tread – have a universal tread that does not require a certain direction of installation and can work in both directions, although worse than a directional tread in the forward direction.
According to the height of the profile, rubbers are distinguished: low-profile and high-profile.
Low-profile tires have a profile height of up to 55% and are designed for excellent handling at high speeds in turns, bends and in normal traffic. True, such tires are quite rough and transfer to the smallest car pebble and love a flat road without potholes.
High profile car tires are the standard rubber for most cars. For SUVs, there is rubber with a super high profile, i.e. higher than 70%.
The width, profile and size of the tire is indicated on the sidewall of any tire in the following version: 185/65 R14.
185 is the size of the width to the tire of car in millimeters.
65 is the height of the rubber profile in percent. That is, the height is calculated according to the formula 185*(65/100)=120.25 millimeters
R14 is the size of the rim in inches that this tire will fit on.
Some tires may have a different marking, for which calculators and tables exist to decipher.
A new type of rubber can be added to the characteristics of a summer tire – ECO, or with a zero level of resistance. This is a special summer tire that has a reduced level of friction with the road, and therefore resistance, which leads to a decrease in fuel consumption, which in turn increases environmental friendliness. Of course, everyone who understands “zero friction” will seem absurd, because it is impossible. This is just a successful commercial slogan of manufacturers and sellers of rubber. And if you really reduce the level of friction, then the summer rubber will have a worse grip on the road at high speeds. Try to brake on such rubber on asphalt covered with cloudy dust – the car becomes as if on ice skates and there is no question of safety.
Conditionally summer rubber includes all-season rubber, which is widely used in the territories of the former USSR. This is the so-called universal tire for winter and summer, which does not work 100% at any time of the year, so in the race for maximum versatility, we got both the advantages and disadvantages of winter and summer tires.
Summer tires for cars in sports
If you had to watch the Formula 1 race or the 24 Hours of Le Mans or just documentaries about this type of racing, you should have noticed that the choice of the type of rubber is given very important attention. If it suddenly starts raining on a dry track, almost all drivers stop for a pit stop and change tires on a rainy day That is, in sports, for each type of surface, a different type of rubber is used, which must be replaced depending on the surface. A similar situation in other sports races, the truth is not so clearly expressed. For example, in Paris-Dakar, the optimal tire is selected for a certain special section.
