2ndGenGuy
01-02-2008, 03:25 PM
My experience with tire siping is that it's just a plain bad idea. Both for on and off road use. My friend had a Jeep Wrangler with MT/R tires on it, and Discount Tire had siped them for him. The results? Tread chunking, little hunks of tread would come off after some hardcore mudding. Traction may have been improved, but we had no unsiped tires to compare it to.
Also, my friend bought some tires for his MR2 and told them he'd be autocrossing them. They suggested tire siping for added traction. The result was again, tread chunking, and after one good autocross the tires were pretty shitty looking. He got the shop to replace them, and his traction didn't seem any better or worse with identical, unsiped tires.
So after these two experiences of mine, I decided that I would never, ever do this. I figure if it was really a benefit, why doesn't the factory do it to all their tires and sell it as a feature? Well, then I was looking at some other rain tires, and they do in-fact sipe a lot of them from the factory, but it's not just slicing across the tread, they're small patterns that look like they're designed a certain way for a reason. Probably so they don't chunk out.
I was wondering what anybody else's experiences were with tire siping? Am I wrong in thinking that it really provides no benefit in dry weather, and only causes strange wear when pushing tires to the limits?
Also, my friend bought some tires for his MR2 and told them he'd be autocrossing them. They suggested tire siping for added traction. The result was again, tread chunking, and after one good autocross the tires were pretty shitty looking. He got the shop to replace them, and his traction didn't seem any better or worse with identical, unsiped tires.
So after these two experiences of mine, I decided that I would never, ever do this. I figure if it was really a benefit, why doesn't the factory do it to all their tires and sell it as a feature? Well, then I was looking at some other rain tires, and they do in-fact sipe a lot of them from the factory, but it's not just slicing across the tread, they're small patterns that look like they're designed a certain way for a reason. Probably so they don't chunk out.
I was wondering what anybody else's experiences were with tire siping? Am I wrong in thinking that it really provides no benefit in dry weather, and only causes strange wear when pushing tires to the limits?