Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Wheels & Tires Siping?

I must be ignorant- a friend of mine just bought a new set of tires and had them siped as an aftermarket service. Never knew that was possible?!? He swears by it- says rain and snow traction/stability is way better. Has anyone had experience with this? Your opinions and experience is appreciated...

Siping is basically putting a bunch of tiny slices in the tread of tires to help increase traction in bad weather. Is it good for bad weather stability? Yes, but you have to realize that your tires will chunk and wear out very quickly under spirited driving. This happens because the treads are sliced so thinly that heavy traction literally tears the rubber off the tire.

So if you are an aggresive driver, steer clear of siping and get yourself a set of good winter tires instead.

When you say spirited driving, are you talking tire chirping shifts, squealing turns and hard breaking? Or not even that much?

Here in Canada tire shops will void your tire warranty if you sip the tire tread. In fact they don't even provide such service or recommend it.
Buy yourself a good all season tire with wide channels to disperse water and agressive side blocks for traction or better buy winter tires.

If you do any of those things with any kind of regularity then avoid siping like the plague

There are many factory siped tires as well. Both my Dunlop SP Sport 5000s and my Firestone Firehawk SZ50EP's are siped.

Heck, even the 14" Michelins currently on the Buick have "sipe like" cuts on the tread blocks to improve wet and ice traction.

So there are factory sipes as well. That option will not void your warranty, but is probably still subject to chunking.

TB

My opinion seems to differ.....I love siping. I have had 3 sets of tires siped on 3 different cars with nothing but "great" results. Siping DOES decrease tire life and INCREASE the chance of pieces of the tire coming off but the traction gained is amazing. I have never had a problem with the tire coming apart or stability problems and I drive my SVT as hard as anyone could. Think about how many times your tire gets a little cut from running something over. I wouldn't sipe a good or new tire but if you have an old all season or worn snow that needs a little life. Sipe em! What I do is buy a good new set of tires every year. Run them to death all summer then sipe the best 2 and mount them on the front. Next year throw them away and start over....Kumo's are $70 or so a tire...Sipe em and you have a free snow tire. Siping is NOT a replacement for a snow tire by any means but can easily double the amount of traction your getting from an all season or other tire. And as far as a warranty goes...If you have them siped from the same dealer the tires are from they ARE still under warranty(at least with Discount).

I can atest to that!!!!

:p j/k

I had a new set of 185/70/14 Yokohama tires siped last winter and they worked out very well. Now I'm on different tires that I'm considering having siped if they don't do well enough in the snow. Its funny people are questioning the usefulness of siping. Ever look at a Blizzak tire....notice those little bitty cuts in the tread block...those are sipes. Granted there IS some more involved in those sipes versus slashing across the entire wheel like shops do...but they both serve the same purpose. Last I checked Winter tires don't even get a UTQG for tread wear because they aren't made for mileage, they're made for traction. Now, if I take an all-season(aka...high mileage)tire and sipe it...thereby decreasing its life(assuming aggresive driving)...its really not much different than running 'true' winter tires.

I agree with Krafty, get some snow tires, siping is good but doesn't produce "miracles on ice" Now I just bought a set of Michelin "Pilot" Alpins and so far, on dry pavement, I forget I have snow tires on right now I hope they are as good in snow as my Yokahama Guardex 600's were.