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Looking to put new shoes on. My neighbor workes part time for a large tire dealer (he's a certified mechanic not just a tire monkey) and he said that when I pick up the new ones to have them trued and siped. Does not change the load range or speed range, but gives better tracking under all wet and dry conditions. I read an article where Formula car tires are trued and siped for better wet traction.
I had a set of tires trued on my 63 Vette years back and those puppies wore forever with little or no weights on them, but I never had a tire siped.
Bliizacs (sp?) are siped from the manufacturer, but another article said that it is too costly for tire companies to do it to all tires.
Has anyone ever had a set siped? IF so is it worth it. There is a garage her that does it for $5.00 a tire.
Sorry about that shouls have explained.
When truing a tire they spin it up to high RPM and trim off the rubber that makes a tire out of true. It's like a lathe.
When they sipe a tire they actually cut grooves, bout the with of a hacksaw blade horizontally across the heavy tred of the tire, about every 1/8 inch or so.
When they sipe a tire they actually cut grooves, bout the with of a hacksaw blade horizontally across the heavy tred of the tire, about every 1/8 inch or so.
For $5/tire? If that's true, jump on it.
I use to sipe my 4x4 MTR tires when I was into 4-wheeling but I did it myself. Its quite a project IMO.
I've siped tires on my Toyota 4x4 so the tires would spread a little more for better traction during rockcrawling. But I've never heard of siping tires on a street sports car... personally I wouldn't want to cut into the integrity of a tire you KNOW will be spinning a lot faster.
There shouldn't be enough radial run out in a HP tire/wheel assembly that would require "truing" If the assembly is that far out it's time for another tire or wheel.
Siping, IMO, is unnecessary with todays HP tires and can cause tread chunking if done incorrectly.
My last visit at Discount Tire revealed the Sipe machine sitting caddy whampous under a stack of junk. They really tried pushing that crap 3 or 4 years ago.
Never fell for it. Guess most others didn't either or the machine would still be in a prominent location and being used....obviously not.....
Shouldn't need to sipe HP tires. As for truing. If a new HP tire is not true on the rim there is something wrong with the rim or the tire didn't seat properly on the rim. Take the tire off check the rim and then remount with the proper lubricant to allow the tire to center while seating.
Truing can't hurt anything, as it makes the tire perfectly round, but siping is a no,no for high performance tires. Winter tires often have siping, but they're not designed for high speed or handling. With siping the tread loses stablity and degrades handling, which maybe OK for your typical passenger car, but not a Vette.
Truing can't hurt anything, as it makes the tire perfectly round, but siping is a no,no for high performance tires. Winter tires often have siping, but they're not designed for high speed or handling. With siping the tread loses stablity and degrades handling, which maybe OK for your typical passenger car, but not a Vette.