Siping

[UncleDon]

I keep hearing the term siping applied to tires. Please tell this old man what the term means.

[open_circuit]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siping_(rubber)

Cutting slits in the tread. I'm not sure it is a good idea. Buy better tires instead of cutting bad ones, I think is much better.

Edit: my comment about not a good idea refers to after-market siping. This used to be a thing tire shops would offer as a service, but I haven't heard about it in a decade.

[UncleDon]

Does not sound like something I want to do and don't really see a need for it. Thanks for the answer.

[FINOCJ]

but I haven't heard about it in a decade.

You can still get it done in some tire shops (generally not the big name brand shops). I've not done it myself - but some wheelers that have blocky mud-terrain tread sipe their tires to help with snow and ice (and maybe even to get a bit more grip) on slickrock etc. A friend with a TJ and MT tires siped a couple years ago for DDing in snow and ice - his comment is that it really helped. I think Doink might also have siped MTs on his LJ? In theory, all the extra little edges from the slits (or slices) help add extra grip. There are of course trade-offs and it often voids any manufacturer warranty. Most modern snow and AT tires work pretty well in the snow with the less chunky/blocky tread pattern and more biting edges and complicated tread patterns direct from the manufacturer.

[Brian]

Got my KM2s sipped last year for $20 a tire. The idea is the MT blocks with the resultant large void areas on the tread cause a limited contact patch. Adding siping gives the tread surface something to bite into the road surface. There are no negative effects with siping. The pic (today) is of my tire with approximately 9K miles since being siped. After doing this to my tires there hasn't been any real in town snow/ice to give an honest opinion about the benefit of having done it! My Jeep is my DD, so I wanted my tires to be up to year round street driving with wet/icy conditions and figured if siping would give me a little extra margin for safety and traction with no down side, then why not try it. The surfaces I have traveled; dry pavement, wet pavement, snow covered trails, dirt, rocks, mud and sand the tires have performed exceptionally well for me. Street driving at 25 psi and trail 9-10 psi for reference.


Looks like Les Schwab sipes tires too: https://www.lesschwab.com/article/performance-tire-siping.html


https://i.imgur.com/Y0ldvNY.jpg

[GPP33]

I’m about to groove and sipe the tires on my tow rig. The tires I have on started off great from the factory but now that they are at half life I’m running into tread blocks that are tied together half way down and siping that’s getting smaller and smaller. Siping helps in snow for three reasons (1) they grab snow and hang onto it, snow sticks to snow better than it sticks to rubber (2) all those little biting edges find places to hang on and (3) water evacuation, the reason ice is so slippery is because the friction between it and your tire causes a thin layer to melt, that water acts as a lubricant. Evacuate the water and traction goes up.