Tire Sidewall Indentations

jadcock · May 30th, 2004, 12:29 PM

Per a discussion here a few weeks ago about indentations in the sidewalls, here is a snippet I found on the Michelin website:

"You will find some degree of sidewall indentations on almost all radial tires. Indentations are formed where the fabric cord that is used in the body plies of the tire is lap-spliced together. These overlapping splices create slight indentations because the stretching capacity of the splices is less than the rest of the body ply material. In fact, the indentation is the most reinforced section of the tire."

bonecollector · May 30th, 2004, 05:16 PM

thats pretty cool.. i have michelin ltx's and i was wondering about those indents.

jadcock · May 30th, 2004, 09:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bonecollector

thats pretty cool.. i have michelin ltx's and i was wondering about those indents.

I have the LTX M/S tires (is that what you have?) and they have a few, but not many. I've had a set of tires before that had lots of deep indentations on it. It was a no-name tire, though, so I attributed it to poor quality.

Just curious -- how many miles do you have on your LTX's? I don't know how many are on mine (were there when I bought it), but I have to believe at least 50k miles, just based on the amount of miles my truck has. These tires were produced right around the first of 2000 (according to the DOT stamps on them), which makes them over 4 years old. And if I divide my truck's total mileage over the life of the truck (which is all I can do, not knowing its past ownership history), that's about 20k each year...or 80k miles since the tires were produced. They still have LOTS of tread left, though, so I can't believe they have that many miles on them. Either way, I'll buy these tires again...I really like them.

bonecollector · May 31st, 2004, 04:30 AM

yes thats what i have are the Ltx M & S.. they have 61,500 miles on them and are almost still like brand new... i got the lifetime replacement and rebalance/rotation.. so they get that around every 6,000 or if i feel like it needs it, like before and after we come back from vacation which is a 9 hour drive from michigan to new york one way.. i like them, but i was looking at the cross terrains that are rated better for everything except mud traction... better wet, snow, handling, quietness....hmmm.. we will have to see what happens when its time to get new ones... whenever that is.. the original bridgestone duelers were pretty worn at 66,000. but we got it with 34,000 and then a steak knife that tore a 2 inch gas in the tread made me decide to just go all new.