Testing Car Tires
Tire manufacturers use three methods of testing their products. They are: first, by the use of their own fleets of cars which they call “test fleets”; second, by means of information supplied by taxicab companies and other companies making daily use of large numbers of automobiles; and third, by specially devised machines.
A manufacturer’s test fleet is very advantageous because it may be sent to different parts of the country to test out the actual wearing qualities of tires under varying conditions, and to determine the sizes and types of tires that are best adapted to different localities.
The manufacturers of tires often make contracts with taxicab companies to keep a careful record of the performance of the tires used, and in this way important information is secured as to the particular sizes and types of tires which are successful. Information secured by this method, tests out tires for heavy traffic.
The third way of testing the tires, by special testing machines, gives specific information that can not be secured by the first two methods. There are many problems relating to speed, liability to blowouts and tensile strength of the fabric and the like, which must be solved in this way.
Testing tires has become more important than ever since the Japanese conquests in the Malayan Peninsula and the East Indies cut off our supplies of rubber from the Far East. Various kinds of synthetic rubber and combinations of synthetic and natural rubber have been tried. We must test them to see exactly how they will serve.
