Tire Sipping

[JohnnyC]

Has anyone heard or tried this technique? Tire sipping is cutting small slits in your tires to increase traction and grip. Is this ok to do?

John

 

[78SilvAnniv]

I've heard of it but never tried it.
When we lived in WA state we had some friends who would sipe their tires instead of purchasing studded tires. Worked for them and they do this every winter.
Heidi

 

[c4cruiser]

Supposedly siping works very well for rainy conditions. The trucking industry had been using siping for many years. Not sure how it would work on hard-packed snow or ice. Les Schwab pushes tire siping on thir customers pretty hard in the fall and winter. The idea is that the the cuts allow the tread blocks to open a bit to force water out of the tread faster cutting down on hydroplaning. It used to be that only new tires could be siped, but now you can take used tires in to hae that done as long as the remaining tread meets a minmium depth requirement.

I'm not sure that siping would work well for high performance tire in dry conditions. Most perfromance tires use special rubber compounds and tread design to get traction. Siping (cutting across the tread) may cause the tread to squirm or move around and generate excessive heat and that's an enemy of high perfromance tires.

 

[jwilliams]

Here's what I tell my customers about tire siping. (I am a tire dealer) If a bunch of engineers way smarter than all of us thought this was the best way to go for tires, we'd all buy smooth tires and just sipe them....no need for tread designs or fancy rubber compounds. This process is not useful to 90% of people. It is used in the truck tire industry on recapped tires to help in wet weather. The most common siped truck tire is a ribbed highway tire usually on trailers. I have seen it on the drive axles of school buses with a ribbed tire. I have never seen anyone sipe tires used on the steer axle of a commercial truck. I think siping is helpful on light truck mud terrain tires that are used on snow & ice. These tires have no sipes or grooves for good wet and snow traction.

Tire companies put a ton of effort into designing tires. Siping will usually increase how fast a tire wears out (yes I know les schwab says it gives longer wear) I disagree. Tire makers consider siping a modification to their tires and it voids any mileage warranty and if the manufacturer feels it contributed to a tire failure that would otherwise be warrantied it voids the warranty. It can make a tire handle poorly because you compromise the stability and integrity of the tread block design.

 

[Skant]

Ask your tire manufacturer what they think about it. They don't have any motivation to lie to you in this matter.

I expect that jwilliams is 100% correct. I'd say that whatever your tire company says about it is the correct answer.

- Skant