Tires: To sipe or not to sipe?

[2ndGenGuy]

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?

[HondaBoy]

umm, i'd say no unless you have your tires sponsored or something. like you said, the tread seems to come apart more often than not. i dont see how this is that great of an idea.

[itzdave]

are you talking about siping them urself or getting siped tires? i think if ya got the pre-siped ones, they might be better than the DIY siping.
the theory makes sence, but i could imagine chunking when pulling some G's, maybe only useful for wet/snow. mainly wet tho.

[2ndGenGuy]

Nah, I'm thinking more along the lines of having the guy at Discount Tire or whoever doing the siping. Never tried DIY stuff on the tires. I'm not that bold, or rich yet.

[labeledsk8r]

i hadnt even known what sipeing was till about a month ago after the snow flew here... they seem semi usefull for snow... but i can so no advantage to sipeing for raceing and grip.. you compair a slick tire to a road tire with the same exact ruber compound, the slick will get more traction... for auto X i would just be looking for a good sticky road tire... sipeing just looks like it will chip apart trying to anytihng more then daily driveing on them

[Civic Accord Honda]

** n00b alert **

what is sipeing ? lol

[russiankid]

** n00b alert **

what is sipeing ? lol

Look it up.
http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/CheapTri...reSiping.shtml

[2ndGenGuy]

I liked these quotes from that site you linked:

* Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. does not recommend that passenger tires be siped, because the tread depth and the tire body are not designed for siping. Siping could invalidate the warranty if Goodyear determines that a tire failure was caused by the procedure.

* Michelin Tire (who also market the popular BFG brand) does not recommend it, but acknowledge that it is common in the industry. Siping can alter or corrupt the design criteria that were established for that tire. It can cause excess noise, excess heat buildup, and it could ultimately cause damage to the tire. (e.d. This last statement is interesting as these are some of the benefits of siping large monolithic tread block)

[2oodoor]

step AWAY from the tire with the siping thingy

[2ndGenGuy]

step AWAY from the tire with the siping thingy

LOL! Is that the technical term for the siping tool?


After reading a bunch of stuff online. It seems like it's not a bad thing to have for grandma's rain tires, or if you've got a set of tires for driving on snow and ice. But I was talking with a spec Miata racer, and he says he'd sipe if he could for racing. That just seems wrong to me. Thats why I brought up the thread. Maybe he meant to say shaving the tires instead of siping. Hell, I guess I'll have to talk to him again.