Auto Moto Center

Car tires are more important than many people give them credit for being. They are a link to the road in a number of different ways. It can be a very scary and dangerous situation to lose contact with, or not have very good contact with the road. This becomes even more of a quandary since you do not have any control over what direction your car will be taking, and when you are going over 60 miles per hour, your vehicle becomes scrap iron waiting to happen. The goal here is to achieve friction, and every driver must realize there are things that can be controlled and others that cannot, to this regard. You are responsible for your own and anyone else's life in the car you are driving and so you had better be sure that you have taken all the measures that you can to prevent a problem.

Regarding the contact of the tires on the road, there are a few factors to keep in mind. When the rubber of the tires comes in contact with the road's asphalt or concrete surface, most of the friction would occur. The action of gravity on the mass of your car is the only thing that is causing this contact and so naturally more weight equals more friction between the road and your car tires. A good thing but can turn against you in the form of inertia after the friction has been overcome say after you've locked up the brakes, now inertia is greater with a heavier vehicle and takes more in the way of friction to stop it. Think about it this way -- rubber and concrete are jointly conducive to friction.

Now the contact of the road has several factors as already mentioned. The majority of the friction comes from the contact of rubber of the tire with the concrete or asphalt of the road. Time for some basic physics, I guess -- gravity would manifest itself on the mass which is your vehicle, which leads to the contact, and as you would definitely be able to remember, more weight is synonymous with added friction between road and tires. While this sounds fine and dandy, this could turn into a beast within itself, so to say, in the form of inertia, which would be greater for bigger vehicles such as trucks and SUvs, and more friction would be required to stop this from happening. Friction is something not uncommon with rubber and concrete.

Air pressure in tires will change the properties of the rubber by stretching it so that if a tire is overfilled it can decrease the amount of friction. There is also less surface area in this case. So now we have two things given -- rubber tires and concrete roads -- what, pray tell, would be your additional responsibilities, and are there additional responsibilities? Yes indeedy, and that would be tread. How does tread affect the ability of car tires to make contact with the road? Good question -- that is one that can be expounded on if we consider outside factors that would alter the road's surface -- weather, that is. Snow, rain water and that ooshy, gooshy mud that is caused by the intermingling of earth and water are all elements that could reduce the amount of friction by filling out your tire's grooves, thus inhibiting the contact.

So how does tread help in this situation. The answer is as simple as that thing you do when you hear a nifty tune on the radio -- groove. The grooves in your tires have one simple purpose, which is to facilitate the material, regardless of what it is, to go elsewhere other than between rubber and road. Grooves mitigate the negative effects of "hydroplaning", a driving phenomenon that makes driving under bad weather conditions even more dangerous. To sum everything up in a nutshell, here's what we are basically trying to say -- by having a good set of tires on your vehicle, tires with a lot of tread, to be specific, you are guaranteeing that your vehicle can maneuver its way out of a dangerous situation thanks to added grip, added control and as a result of both, added safety for you and the occupants of your vehicle.