mazdaexe

I dont know much about tires, but I was highly recommended by friends that I should get BFGoodrich g-Force T/A KDW 2 for my new rims.

I noticed that on tirerack.com, both the traction and tread wear scored 9.0+? Does that make sense? I thought traction and tread wear are inverses of each other? Or does the rating mean relative scores? Meaning, for a tire with such good traction, the tread wear is relatively good?

Edit:
And its relatively cheap too. $170/tire. S03, $200+

mikeb

sounds like the bf's have best of both worlds

wakeech

well, those're subjective ratings, made by who?? can you find out?? ...they're not exactly the most scientific way to go: best to ask those who actually use (up) tyres in events which test their capabilities (like autocrossers).

the Falken Azenis, Toyo T1-S Proxes (although babylou hates 'em... a man whose opinion you respect), and others i can't think of right now are relatively inexpensive, HARD gripping street tyres which are more-or-less good in the rain as well (Proxes i know are rated very very highly in the rain).

things like treadware ratings and grip ratings come from the manufacturer, and are compared to an unstated quantified benchmark, so comparison across brands, and sometimes even across models is completely useless. ask the people that've used them.

ah yeah, and to get to the science of tyre design. it's really still an art, with lots of innovation and creative things to think of left to think of. not only does compound make a difference, but tyre construction, materials, process, and (to a much lesser degree) tread design all impact on a tyre's life, grip in different conditions, and other stuff (like impact absorption and road noise generation).

as far as compounds go, it's really a trade-off: you want something which at the same time is adhesive (actually STICKS to the road), and cohesive (sticks to itself at very high tempurature and load), and won't "cook" (whatever the hell the name of the process is in organic chemistry when you have molecules rearrange their structure from heat... yes, esentially cooking).

for structure, you need a tyre which is strong, but pliant... but not too pliant, and only in the right places, with possibly some kind of decreasing flexibility the more it's loaded and...... you can see where this is going. tyre construction is where it's at, and there's absolutely no limit to what cna be done to try and gain an advantage.

for tread, it's pretty simple, really... tread blocks have to be large enough to have mass enough to displace the heat generated at the point of contact, but (in the case of adverse conditions like rain, snow, mud, gravel, etc.) also be able to displace the crap that's between your tyre's surface and the road. also, the more big ***** on the tyre you have that are bouncing into and out of the tyre, creating pressure waves (and thus sound) in the bladder, the louder you tyre is going to be; compare your average mud-swimming offroad vehicle (which you can hear as a drone 100ft away) to your average luxo-touring tyre, which has "belts" of tread rather than blocks, with as little in the way of surface irregularity as possible, thus trying to minimize the road noice generated. it's not a complicated proposition considering all the other stuff that goes into tyre design, and actually a very major aspect in tread design is the marketability or aesthetic of the pattern.

...so, that's my take on tyres, in a nutshell.

syntrix

It also has to do with your style of driving.

Azenis will work great on the street/autox.

But the same Azenis tire at a bit higher temps from hot laps on a real road course become slick as snot.