New Tires vs Worn Tires - What Performs Best?

The Truth About Worn Tires - What Happens As A Tire Wears?
Big Thanks To Michelin For Partnering On The Video!

Do tires get better or worse with wear? What's the difference between a new tire and a worn tire? As a tire wears, you may be surprised to learn that its dry performance actually improves. Braking distances tend to get shorter, and cornering grip tends to increase.

The opposite, however, happens in the wet. As the tire nears the wear bars, braking distances increase and cornering grip decreases? Well, why is this? And what can you do to prevent wear from ruining a tire’s performance?

First off, we need to break down how a tire gets its grip, which can be grouped into three categories: construction, compound, and tread pattern. A tire’s overall grip is a combination of all three. The construction of the tire provides the overall shape of the contact patch, and how it interacts over bumps and imperfections.

The compound obviously plays the most critical role; how well the compound sticks to the road determines how well the tire performs. And what’s cool about compound is that it doesn’t change as the tire wears, so you want compound grip to be as high as possible for both wet and dry grip.

And finally, we get to the tread. Tread patterns are great for wet grip, they improve traction in the wet by evacuating water away from the road contact to help prevent the tire from hydroplaning. So it’s logical then, that as the tread wears away, wet performance wears away with it.

In the dry, however, that tread pattern reduces the amount of rubber contacting the road, and decreases the rigidity of the tire, allowing it to flex and squirm. As the tire starts to wear away, the tread pattern wears away with it, and the response and grip of the tire improve. This is why in racing, when it’s dry, you’ll see tires without any tread pattern at all, just a smooth, sticky, flat surface for the tire to clench the road.

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[mihai]

There's one thing you forgot! Age!!! Depending on how much you drive, it is not only wear that affects the tyre but also age. Rubber compound is only guaranteed for a certain period. So although you get more surface contact are as the tyre wear down, with time the compound losses its characteristics becoming stiff, dry & brittle

[thedriverux]

I personally would love an enTIRE series dedicated to tires. Tire engineering explained. In depth, everything. Make me a tire nerd in depth.
Thanks.

[videomaniac]

Very interesting. On a Porsche that I had years ago I had a set of Yokahama A008Ps that I carefully rotated frequently to equalize treadwear. I timed the point when the tread wore down to zero to the beginning of our dry season in San Diego and so I was able to drive the car for quite a while on slick tires. The handling was fantastic, above the already great handling of the tire and I had no problem. On the rare occasion when I did encounter water on the road I would just slow down and drive more carefully and so I never had an issue. However, when my wife found out that I was driving on slicks she made me go out and buy new tires😟

[joelmammachen]

Good they removed the badges, not even God will know that's a Camry

[CRracing]

I really enjoyed this one! My work revolves pretty much entirely around tires. The insight you brought really helped me understand the inner works of a tire!

[rainystorm]

When EE makes sponsored contents that are also super educational, I wish I could like the video more than once!

[javasoy]

A good example of sponsored content done right. Thank you.

[JohnDotBomb]

I really like tire videos. I also really like when you use sponsored content to make high quality educational content with connections.

Great video, really hope to see a video in that testing facility. Also want a video in the factory if you ever get the chance- I would love to see the molding process and tooling

[joaoluistavares]

This is how a video about Tires should always be done. It doesn't mean necessarily to be kind of similar copies, but the explanation should be correct. I saw different videos where there was this tendency to actually make all people think that is not an issue at all on the wet surface as the Tire Wears. Thanks for giving us this explanation.

[tangles]

True that on the average economy tyre it will grain performance with wear, but UHP road tyres with much softer compounds are susceptible to heat cycles. So if you push them get them hot you will change the compound over time and make it harder, losing dry performance with wear.

[mubashirali]

The only automotive channel explain things perfectly.

[zacharyponds]

My brother works for Michelin in Lexington, South Carolina and has done the very same test you did! Tires are extremely important and way more complex than most people realize.

[codylau]

I work in a tire shop so I already know these Michelin Premier are pretty much top of the line, but it's nice to learn something new. No matter what brand I get, I make sure it has a long mileage warranty. I also look to see if the sipes go down to the bottom so even when they are worn out, performance isn't degraded as much. Michelin and a few Goodyear ones do this as well but I haven't seen Pirelli do it.

[peterwho]

I had those Michelin Premiere A/S on my Accord before it was traded in and those tires are the best all season's I have used to date! It got me through 6-8 inches of snow with no issues and also with no compromise on safety!

[ozzstars_cars]

This is one of my most favorite channels on YouTube. The Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires on my 2018 Corvette Grand Sport grip like glue but at 10-15k miles they will be worn out due to soft sticky rubber. It's the sacrifice I can live with due to the turning performance that is amazing!!

[texastriguy]

First of all - great video as always! Advances in tire technology have been fantastic.

There are a few considerations here that perhaps warrant mentioning.

1) Depending on where you live, the percentage of your overall driving time that is done in rainy weather is relatively small. Some regions have a lot of wet weather, some less. But regardless, the percentage of hours in the year in which precipitation is falling is fairly small. Statistically, more than 2/3rds of the total precipitation in the US happens in just 30 to 55 calendar days per year. And on those days, it rains far less than the entire 24 hours. Overall, the percentage of time it's raining in the US is between 2 and 8%, depending on where you live and how you measure it. So there's statistically a 95% chance it will be dry when you are driving.

2) Michelin should really differentiate between "wet roads" and "standing water". What Michelin REALLY means in their testing is standing water of some specified depth. For roads that are merely "wet", the compound matters FAR more than the tread pattern or depth. Even more than the tire compound, the actual road surface itself is an even larger factor! Grooved concrete with a broom finish surface, like is used widely here in Texas, provides vastly superior grip over smooth rolled asphalt. This is true whether wet or dry. Further - grooved concrete is permanent. It does not change over time largely. So the effect of worn tires is mitigated by the surface treatment of the road surface.

3) The statistic of one being 4 times more likely to have an accident is also somewhat misleading. There are two aspects to this. First - "being involved" in an accident is different than you being the cause of one. If someone else has terrible tires or drives too fast and slams into you, the tires on YOUR car will have little effect on that. Next - you aren't entirely helpless here. In the USA, few if any drivers receive any real wet weather driving instruction. Drivers get education about driving in the wet, but little to no practice. But the point here is that the WAY you choose to drive when it's raining has the majority of the impact on whether or not you have an accident. One could simply slow down a little, drive more cautiously, take turns slower, and make other adjustments that would have a much greater impact than your tires.

4) On my own car, I run Michelin's Sport Cup 2 track racing tires - and I use them for daily driving. The rationale is that they have much higher dry traction due to a very sticky rubber compound. Since 95% of the time I am driving on dry roads, I benefit vastly from better grip, shorter stopping distances, and better turning control that a wet weather tire. Further - these tires are actually designed for wet tracks - so on wet (but not standing water), they actually outperform many tires designed for hydroplaning resistance. The tread compound on the inner third of the tire is highly optimized for wet traction, the outer for dry and wear resistance. Their only shortcoming is that they do not perform well in standing water. So when that happens and I have to drive, I simply reduce my speed a good bit. Most modern roads have excellent drainage - and as I noted before, many have grooves in them to help shed water.

In the end, I actually feel like a tire optimized for world-class dry and wet, but not standing water performance, combined with some driving modifications for standing water, is actually safer than going for a "one tire to rule them all" approach - mostly because of the trade-offs that invariably must happen.

And we haven't talked about snow yet!

[RyuHayabusa]

Go Bridgestone Tires! I bought some BF Goodrich tires about a year ago because they were known for good wet grip and living in South FL its always raining ( its raining right now ). I have to say these are very good wet grip tires, they give me a great boost of confidence when driving in the rain. the tires are BF Goodrich G Force Comp II . My favorite grip tires so far are Bridgestone Potenzas.

[Trendyflute]

Very cool stuff about the silica in the tires, with the binding agent! In pavement engineering, we need to have binding agents and emulsifiers for the gravel and sand aggregate to mix in with the bitumen. There is definitely a lot of chemistry happening there and different mix designs do very different things. Very cool to understand this is happening in tires...makes a lot of sense, as these items genuinely hit the roads, and being complementary to the roads is smart!

[VCBird]

As a Certified Tire Pro for National Tire and Battery and TBC Corp, I gotta say...
Damn good job and on point with everything about the Michelin Premier :)
I'll be using that explanation about partial depth siping with cheaper tires to explain to customers why dealership tires are the way they are as well as the explanation about the thinner steel for skinnier siping making the process more expensive, but overall justified due to the better performance :)

[christianroman]

I use those Michelin premier a/s on my forester. Excellent wet and snow traction. Love them for northeast winters.