Nice video, very interesting, but I have some questions for the experimenters
What is stopping peformance like at 6/32"? 8/32"? 3/32"?
If the legal limit is raised to 4/32", will they return in two years showing the same effect compared to 8/32"?
I don't like riding tires down to the 2/32" limit under most circumstances for a whole lot of reasons, but I would like to see the whole regression analysis in 1/32" increments at least. It would seem to make more sense to pick a point on the curve where braking distances begin to increase dramatically. If that point happens to fall on 4/32", that's a lucky(?) guess, but I'm a little underwhelmed by the design of this experiment.
If a tire company is going to get involved, donate a set of tires, a truing machine (lathe) and spend a day at the track. Set a base line with brand new tires and start cutting and running from there. Perhaps the slope will not be linear, perhaps it's not linear between 4/32" and 2/32".
Or would we find that performance doesn't really drop off until the wear bars fully block water flow up the tread channel? It's just an alternate hypothesis for the sake of argument mind you, but if you had cut out the wear bars with a tire grooving iron, what would have happened to stopping distance? Anybody want to suggest it would increase?
Yep, if your goal was to improve the safety of the general driving public without necessarily having a goal of selling more tires, I could think of two or three factors to evaluate before recommending an automatic replacement at twice the current legal limit.
What is stopping peformance like at 6/32"? 8/32"? 3/32"?
If the legal limit is raised to 4/32", will they return in two years showing the same effect compared to 8/32"?
I don't like riding tires down to the 2/32" limit under most circumstances for a whole lot of reasons, but I would like to see the whole regression analysis in 1/32" increments at least. It would seem to make more sense to pick a point on the curve where braking distances begin to increase dramatically. If that point happens to fall on 4/32", that's a lucky(?) guess, but I'm a little underwhelmed by the design of this experiment.
If a tire company is going to get involved, donate a set of tires, a truing machine (lathe) and spend a day at the track. Set a base line with brand new tires and start cutting and running from there. Perhaps the slope will not be linear, perhaps it's not linear between 4/32" and 2/32".
Or would we find that performance doesn't really drop off until the wear bars fully block water flow up the tread channel? It's just an alternate hypothesis for the sake of argument mind you, but if you had cut out the wear bars with a tire grooving iron, what would have happened to stopping distance? Anybody want to suggest it would increase?
Yep, if your goal was to improve the safety of the general driving public without necessarily having a goal of selling more tires, I could think of two or three factors to evaluate before recommending an automatic replacement at twice the current legal limit.