Advantages of Radial Tires
Radial Tires: - The Best Choice For Drivers
A Brief History
Tires play a very important role for any road vehicle. They are the only parts of a vehicle that are in contact with the surface over which that vehicle travels. The earliest tires were made wholly from rubber and were prone to punctures, flexing and other problems. So, tire manufacturers started to incorporate strands of steel or plies into the rubber. These plies were spun into a network of cords and layered into the rubber to give strength to the tire.
Types Of Tire
When the cords cross over each other at an angle of around 60 degrees from the direction of travel, the tire is a cross-ply or bias ply tire
In a radial, or more correctly a radial-ply tire, the cords are all at 90 degrees to the direction of travel, i.e. they stretch from rim to rim across the tire. Additional strength is built in by enclosing the whole tire with extra belts which run round the circumference of the tire, i.e. at right angles to the radial-ply cords. Formerly these belts were made of the same material as the other tire cords, and then steel. Steel belts were subsequently replaced by Polyester belts. Modern radial-ply tires now have these belts made from fibers like Twaron and Kevlar.
Advantages Of Radial Tires
There are many benefits of fitting radial-ply tires instead of cross-ply tires, they are:
Passenger safety and comfort is improved because:
- they give a shorter braking distance;
- they give improved control of the vehicle;
- the radial cords in the sidewall behave like a spring, giving flexibility and better ride comfort.
- the rigid steel belts support the tread, giving high mileage and superior performance.
- the characteristics of the network of cord or belts can be seperately enhanced to give a dedicated category of tire, e.g. high- performance tire, economy tire.
Maintenance costs are lower because:
- they give lower fuel consumption;
- the suffer fewer punctures;
- they have a higher resistance to wear;
- they have a longer life.
Radial Tires And Classic Cars
Can radial-ply tires by fitted to classic cars? Generally the answer is - yes. In the main vehicles manufactured before 1965 used cross-ply ( bias-ply). One point about cross-ply tires is their load-carrying capacity. A smaller cross-ply tire can carry more load than a radial tire of similar size. However a great many older vehicles were not engineered to take advantage of radial-ply tire designs. Having said that it does not mean that using radial-ply tires on older vehicles unsafe.
Modern Radial Tires
The suspension systems on older vehicles were not designed to use radial-ply tires because radial-ply tires probably were not available to car makers when the vehicle was designed. Nonetheless radial-ply tires may be fitted to older vehicles if the following points are borne in mind:
- radial-ply tires have a larger area of tread in contact with the road surface, so the steering will be heavier and low speed cornering will be less responsive. In addition, on a vehicle that is not fitted with power assisted steering, manoeuvring the vehicle, especially at at low speeds e.g. when parking, can be quite arduous. Consult your tire dealer or car dealer about the issue. Correct tire selection and inflation can effectively surmount most of these problems.
- radial-ply tires are heavier than cross-ply tires of comparable size, so the vehicle may need to be fitted with uprated springs and/or shock absorbers to cope with the extra weight. Again seek the advice of your tire dealer or car dealer.
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