The Missing Link

There have been many technological improvements in tire manufacture over the decades since we wrapped rubber around our wheels looking for that "perfect ride”. We have leaned on advancements in manufacture and design to achieve this state of quality for both performance and economy and in no way is this article saying tires are not better than they once were.

There is still an undefined situation that seems to bite us for no apparent reason and arriving at your destination with no tire problems still will bring a sigh of relief. We have a blow out on the road and cannot understand why "Murphy" is picking on us when all those other vehicles wizz by while you schlep out your spare tire or call "Mr. Hook" for help. We must blame someone; the young kid that mounted the tire, the tire store must have sold you a defective set of rubber, a pot hole in the road jumped up and bit a chunk out of the rubber. W even make up new words to describe the tire malfunction but no one can usually put their finger on what the cause was - usually it comes out as, "things happen," but whatever caused the problem, there you are. Everyone has a preference on things like oil, fuel, grease, tires, even flavors of gum and in each case we have some (to us) obvious reason why our selection is the right one. This decision of choice is what I see as a "missing link". For tires there is one of these “missing links”, now considered by many to be outmoded. It is still my belief that this missing link is the bridge for many tire situations to a better ride. The process I am referring to is "tire truing".

Some call it "tire chewing" and you may remember the time when your Dad bought a set of recapped tires and before the reconstituted tires were slapped on his Dodge Dart they were subjected to a machine that pealed off rubber in the effort to make the new but distorted tire tread round again. This was the heyday of this tire process and after the industry grew past the days of recommending recapping tires, this truing process has become looked at as archaic and even detrimental. The truth is the laws of physics do not change. You cannot break these fundamental rules and going back to these basics truly will yield superior performance in any tire. So before you regard this article as novel, please read on and let me explain myself.