Nokian snow tire; Contact patch
A contact patch is the term applied to the portion of a vehicle’s tire that is in actual contact with the road surface. The shape of a tire’s contact patch can have a great effect on the handling of the vehicle to which it is fitted.
Specifically, for the type of wide tire fitted to many modern performance cars, a contact patch that is wider than it is long will increase the tendency for the vehicle to ‘tramline’ or follow uneven road contours.
Furthermore in front wheel drive cars, the offset between the centroid of the contact patch and the point about which the wheel steers can lead to a condition known as torque steer.
With normal street tires on an automobile the contact patch will remain uniform across the tread of the tire. If the tire is over-inflated the tire will tend to bulge in the center of the tread which will lift the edges off the pavement. This can decrease the handling performance of the vehicle and also decrease the life of the tire. Prolonged use of a tire which is over-inflated will cause the tread in the center to wear away faster than the tread on the edges.
An under-inflated tire can have negative effects as well. In this case the center of the tread will not make as much contact with the road surface and the edges of the tread will wear down faster because the sidewalls of the tire will push the edges into the pavement.
One method of checking for proper inflation is to find a long stretch of pavement such as an empty parking lot and then draw a line across the tread with chalk. Then simply drive straight across the parking lot. If the entire line of chalk has rubbed off, the tire is properly inflated. If the center of the line is rubbed off but the ends are still present, the tire is over-inflated. On the other hand, if the line is rubbed off at the ends but is still present in the center of the tread, the tire is under-inflated.
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Winter tire pressure; Wayne Sales
Wayne Sales (born December 28, 1949) is the former Chief Executive Officer of Canadian Tire Corp. Ltd.. He held position from August 2000 to May 2006. Prior to this, he held the position of Executive VP, Canadian Tire Retail. In May of 2006, Mr. Sales was replaced by current President and CEO Tom Gauld.
In 2004, the Retail Council of Canada recognized Sales’ accomplishments in leading Canadian Tire to outstanding business success. In recognition of this feat he was presented with the Distinguished Canadian Retailer of the Year Award.
Sales was named the top Canadian CEO in Canadian Business magazine’s 2005 All-Star Execs list, which was published in the April 25-May 8, 2005 issue.
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Winter tire packages; Beadlock
A beadlock is a mechanical device that secures the bead of a tire to the wheel.—
First manufactured by Marsh Racing Wheels at Siloam Springs, Arkansas in 1980 but conceived designed and tested by Marsh Racing Wheels years earlier.
Air pressure within a tire forces its bead against the wheel rim and ensures that they rotate as a single unit. More traction is needed for tires on a dirt track racing or off-road vehicle. Drivers will often lower the air pressure to cause the tread to spread out and create a larger contact patch. This practice can create a safety hazard as there may not be enough pressure to secure the tire to the wheel. There are situations where there is a lot of pressure pushes the tire to one side or the other, especially on the outside rear tire of a dirt track racing vehicle when it is turning in a corner of an oval. This causes the bead of the tire to come off the wheel. It is also possible for the tire to have more traction on the ground than there is friction between the tire and wheel. In this case the wheel would spin within the tire without being able to turn the tire. Beadlocks are therefore designed to “lock” the bead of the tire onto the wheel.
A standard beadlock is designed to clamp the tire bead between an outer and an inner ring. The inner ring may be welded onto a standard wheel increasing wheel width by anywhere from 1 1/2 to 2 inches or may be formed as part of the wheel when the wheel is made in the factory. The outer ring is then bolted onto the inner ring with the bead clamped between them. Anywhere between 16 and 32 bolts at around 10 ft·lbf are used around the circumference of the wheel to keep the clamp tight. The rings and bolts can cause problems with balancing the wheel and tire because all the added weight is on one side. This style is used exclusively for offroad use.
It is important to note that most standard beadlocks clamp only the outside bead. This is fine in most cases because the outside bead is the side that comes unseated most often while off-roading.
An internal beadlock is very much like an inner tube within the tire that pushes the bead of the tire tight against the wheel. The internal beadlock is inflated via its own valve stem. The side of the beadlock closest to the tread, the “case”, has a layer of thick fabric, generally polyester, which keeps the beadlock from inflating too far up into the tire. This forces the sides into the tire which compresses the bead of the tire against the wheel.
Some posers want their vehicle to look like it has beadlocks, but don’t actually need the benefits of real beadlocks. Many wheels are therefore made to look like beadlocks but they don’t actually lock anything. The off-road community generally refers to these as “streetlocks” since the owners typically don’t use them for off road use. Streetlocks do improve the structural integrity of the wheel though, and are a good alternative for states where beadlock wheels are not street legal.
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