I just can't buy that, at least not "very reliant." My belief is that if you ask the engineers who designed the car if pretty much any decent tire is "safe" then they will say yes. Are you saying that if the car comes with H rated tires it is "unsafe" per the car maker with T rated tires? I'm really asking, what level of difference in tires would make it unsafe? And I doubt that T versus H ratings would make a difference. But if you have a reference that it would be, I'm open to correction. Obviously if you actually drive a car at 130 you need at least H rated, at 150 Z rated, etc. But I don't do that.Braking and cornering on dry or wet pavement.
What specific aspect of safety engineering do you believe is very reliant upon the tire selected?
By this argument every car should come with high-performance tires; put high-performance tires on a Honda Accord and it will stop and corner a bit better, right? None of those long-lasting low rolling resistance tires need apply.
Also, before a tire hits the legal minimum tread depth, stopping distances on wet roads will be significantly longer. A new T rated tire will be better than a heavily worn Z-rated ultra high-performance tire in this example. Thus you should swap your tires a lot if you really worry about wet traction.
As I mentioned, the vehicle I own can be ordered with (depending on trim level) all-season or summer tires. The car will stop faster with the summer tires. But I don't think it is unsafe on the all-seasons. I don't think it unsafe if I put H-rated Grand touring tires on it either, or got frugal and put some long life tires on it (which will not have the grip that the performance tires do).
Here's another example. One poster described a tire shop that would not put a T rated tire on a car that came with H rated tires. Suppose I live in Minnesota and breezed over to my tire shop in min-January and said "put these here Z-rated summer tires on the car." What should the tire shop do? Such tires are suitable per size and speed rating. But manifestly unsuitable for a Minnesota winter.
I do personally avoid buying really cheap tires and I like to look at reviews on TireRack, etc.
TLDR; I think some tires provide better grip than others, but if you buy a decent tire of the right size, speed rating is not going to influence safety much, if at all, driven at legal speeds. There is probably as much variation (well, more) in tire performance (in the wet especially) as the tire wears than across different tire speed ratings in the same size.
Statistics: Posted by TN_Boy — Sun Dec 29, 2024 2:03 pm