Hi guys
I was searching for winter tires today and one garage told me that Volvo should only use sidewall reinforced tires.


I looked at the manual and did not find anything about tires, let alone sidewalls.
Is reinforced sidewall tires necessary?
What winter tires do you use?

thanks in advance and sorry for too many questions, new owner and have to fix a lot of stuff before winter gets in.


PS. 2003 S60 manual

 

76 views and not a single answer. Good to know nobody on this site every had to buy tires before!

 

30+ years in the automotive and related industry and never heard such a thing. I always do my research on tirerack.com and did not encounter any such thing there the last time I bought tires.

 

Thanks again pkrface. This will save some money. The difference between what he was trying to sale and usual winter tires comes to over 250 CAD.

 

After sleeping on this I thought I better clarify. Reinforced sidewall tires, which I assume he was referring to run flat tires, I am familiar with and had them on a motorcycle in the 80's, but having a car that "required" them is an entirely different issue. Certain '05-'07 Honda Odyssey's came from the factory with specific wheels that only one tire would fit and that was a Michelin PAX tire that was a run flat. Those wheels not accepting any other tire forced the consumer to either buy that tire, or buy a new set of wheels that would accept normal tires. I have never encountered anything similar for Volvo.

 

Thanks for additional info pkrfacfe.


I searched online to see if Volvo has any special requirements for tires and did not found anything myself. There was a Volvo commercial (video) that was saying winter wheels are designed specifically by Volvo for better performance, but nothing about special tires.

That garage salesman must have been trying to sell the more expensive stuff.

 

First question would be "which Garage". I'll avoid them.


I have many years of experience in tires and recapping.
Sidewall reinforcement rings the bell for truck tires, but MOST modern passenger tires are similar and rarely have more than 2 bias ply sidewalls and WANT some flex to keep the bulk of the tread on the road surface.
Trucks want the vertical stability for load bearing support.


Look at this as an example.
Type 2 Tires: Frequently Asked Questions
Motorcycles also want a stiffer sidewall to keep their shape.
My 240 Metzlers for the bike have "REINFORCED" markings.


All tires have some reinforcement. It's not just rubber.
Buy tires from a reputable dealer and I would expect that ALL modern era passenger car tires are worthy to ride on the Volvo.


I also believe that the reviews of tires are very subjective. A PRO driver and a regular Joe drive the car differently.


Winter tires should be better than summer tires but there's not enough difference in the snow grip of the three or four winter tires for your Volvo to matter.




How big is "big".


Read or ignore:




Tire basic/science


I just read this on another forum and find it to be prettyspot on. A guy called FOG posted it back in 2007 and I cannot find any fault init so I thought I would share here just to pass on what I think is goodstuff...


Tires:

A Little word that you can write volumes about:

Where to start? In these Forums, a tire thread usuallygoes on for 4 pages with nothing more than subjective opinions or old wivestales centered on Brand loyalty. Nobody seems to have even a modicum ofknowledge about tires.
I thought that some hard facts may help you when you think about tires orhandling problems.
Were going to keep in Layman’s terms here not scientific stuff or formula.

Traction: hey that’s what tires are all about right? Part of the traction a tiregives is simply the CF (coefficient of Friction) that a particular compoundgives. This can vary slightly. There is virtually no difference in CA of anycompound normally used in street tires.
Most of the differences in traction of various rubber compounds comes from thehardness of the rubber. This is measured by indenting the rubber with a springloaded devise and measuring the depth of the indentation. This “Depth” is thentranscribes on a Durometor Scale There are several scales, the one that covers tiresit the “D” Scale. A given tire rubber compoundwill measure from around 50 to 100 D. The higher number the harder. You won’tfind the number on any tires but most car tireshave a Wear factor number that runs from 100 to 1000 with the higher being thelongest wearing. This number is not solely a hardness number alone, but that’smost of it.

Why the hardness of a tire relates so much to the traction limitof that tire is because most of the grip of a tire on the road is from therubber deforming around the road surface irregularities. Not the CF of therubber. So the softer the rubber the more it deforms, the more grip. It’s nothard to imagine that there are real limits to how far you can go in eitherdirection. Too soft and the tire wears rapidly or chunks, too hard and itdoesn’t grip at all. BTW this is why motorcycles can lean past 45Deg.

Ok up to now we haven’t talked about tire construction. This is also related totraction. (Well, hell everything about a tire (except white walls) is related totraction).
There are three fundamental types of tire constructions. The cross Bias, TheBelted cross Bias. And the Radial.

The difference lies in the way the strengthing cords are arranged (all tirehave cords)
Cross Bias: this is the oldest type. The cords run from one bead or edge to theother on an angle and each layer crosses the first in the opposite angle. Thisproduces a tire that flexes uniformly across it entire surface.

The Bias belted: Constructed as the Cross Bias, with the addition of a stiffercircumferential bead or Breaker. This give a tire with Dual flexing rates. Thebreaker stiffens up the tread to reduce it deformation under load, but the sidewalls remain more flexible

The Radial: In this tire the cords are laid at a 90 degree angle in respect tothe centerline of the tire and there is no crossing, Then a strong Breaker(usually steel Mesh) in laid under the tread, virtually eliminating any treadflexing at all. The side wall must then be very flexible.

Slip Angles: This is the angle of the difference between the direction thewheel is pointed in and the actual direction of travel of the machine. Or afair estimate of the degree of sliding.

First let me say that this is not a racer thing or something confined to hardriding near the limit of adhesion. Every tire on every machine generates a slipangle when turned. A couple of forces cause this. The natural histories of therubber (you know, the spring back) and the construction of the tire cords. Biastire have more self aligning torque than radials and conversely generategreater slip angles.

Tire pressure can increase /decrease the slip angle of a given tire
Watch NASCAR? When you hear the commentators talk about the car’s pushing, oris loose/tight. Then he went up/down ½ lb. in the rear to fix it. What theywere doing is adjusting the slip angle of the tireswith tire pressure.

OK on any vehicle: a rear with a greater slip angle than the front will tend totighten a given turn. If this is severe the thing could be un rideable. This isthe reason that you’ll always be warned that it is un wise to mix tire brands.Especially Radial and Bias types.

There are a few thousand more points that affect how tires perform, but theyare off into the area we don’t need to get to.

Think about all of the above the next time you’re buying tiresor have a handling problem, some of it may help.

FOG

 

Is the term "sidewall reinforced" another way of saying run-flat tires? Sounds likes a very straight forward upsell into a more expensive tire. I've never used run-flats on any of my vehicles, the price point to me does not justify the so-called added benefits.
My preferred winter tire is the Bridgestone Blizzak but at the moment I have a set of Michelin X-Ice's non-studded.

 

That was the conclusion I came to, but the bs was the garage saying "Volvo should only use". Regardless, the OP was being lied to.

 

yep, never heard of such a requirement for Volvos. A more practical question would be what brand of snows do people like - I've got Blizzaks for my S40, General Altimax Artics for the wife's highlander and Gislaved's for the 850. Blizzaks are great on hard snow, Gislaved's on soft snow and the Artics are good all around. My VW CC is a garage queen and doesn't see snow :-) Here in New England, the best prices I've found for mail order are at Great tires at great savings, delivered right to your door.... Also consider doing less wide tires. For example, on my 850, the summer tires are 195/60, but I run 185/65s for the snows since you want them to cut through the snow/slush and not ride on top.

 

I looked at those General Altimax Arctics, so far they're very well reviewed and affordable. I might try a set of those, I'd say my current snow tires have another season of treadlife remaining and those Generals look like a worthy replacement.