Siping Your Tires. Is It Worth Doing?

[Lexington]

Hi All

I just recently learned that some shops have machines that can sipe your tires. Is this worth doing?

I use my 4Runner about 85-90% of the time for commuting. The rest of the time I either go off road for camping or make several trips a year into the snow in the California Sierras mountains.

So I recently learned that there are shops that can cut additional sipes in the tires. It’s my understanding that it improves traction in the rain and snow and improves stopping. It sounds like all pros and no cons. I was wondering if anyone can share any personal experience about siping. I currently have KO2 on my 4Runner and so far all is good.

Thanks

 

[Humble Leader]

no no do not do it no no . dont. good tires are engineered well for their intended use. every tire is a trade off in some areas. save your $$$

 

[premise]

As an experiment, I give you about a 2% chance of ending up w/ a better tire overall.

 

[88Center]

Imagine thinking some tire shop going to out-engineer the engineers from a tire company. :bolt:

 

[gordonp]

In your particular usage, siping (afterwards, by machine) may work.
These siping machines make a series of cross-cuts, across the tread face. The cuts are straight-across, and do not take tread blocks / shapes into account.

As a result, you may have siping-cuts that leave only a small amount of a tread-block in some areas. Again, in your commuting-use and camping, it may be OK.

But for some modest rock-crawling, you'll rely on the tread-blocks to grasp some rocks, edges, or ledges. And this is where the smaller tread-portions tend to give way, and break. Siping can lead to tread-chunking. But generally it's only going to do this if you use your KO2s with a bit of edge-holding gusto.

Personally, given your stated use, I'd give you better odds than 2% success :lol:

 

[chrisridebike8]

It's not worth it in your case. The dudes in Iceland do it, but they have dedicated rigs for snow and ice and are running tires that are like 42x15 at single digit psi. Siping will make the tread blocks very squirmy on road, especially in warmer temperatures and cause odd wear due to how the tread blocks will squirm. It may give you better traction in the snow but at great cost to daily driving. Any aggressive off roading not on snow will tear them up. the tread blocks are designed a certain way, and if you cut them up, they can tear and chunk much more easily on rocks and gravel. If you want more sipes, you are better off getting a snow tire to run that is designed to operate on road as well as excel in snow and cold, wet weather. and if you need snow capability and off road capability combined, an AT tire with a 3PMS rating will be your best bet. but there is no one tire that does well everywhere. AT tires will never be as good on snow and ice as a dedicated winter tire, even with a 3PMS rating.

 

[premise]

Random siping of a street tire is just nuts. That's hack engineering for sure. For offroad, sure, go crazy if you want to.

 

[Lexington]

Thanks All

I’ll just leave them alone.

 

[s14sean]

I have siped a set of bfg MTs and it helped with snow traction but also highly increased chunking on the tread blocks. i would say no based on my experience

 

[Lexington]

Thanks!