I have a friend who has the new thin (?) tires and he said that he has to be careful hitting a pothole or even going over some railroad tracks. Does anyone else have these problems?
Since the OP is asking about personal experiences, let’s move this to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
When you say thin tires, you probably mean “low profile” tires, as in a low sidewall height, or thin sidewalls. Correct? Meaning, the rims sit closer to the ground because there’s less sidewall (rubber) that keeps the rims off the ground.
These kinds of tires are less forgiving for potholes and curbs, yes. Rims are more easily damaged. Rims can be bent.
Anyone with low profile tires will be more prone to such damage.
Yeah, low profile tires suck.
Well, they don’t always suck. They are great for performance. Those low and stiff sidewalls mean that the tires don’t deform much under stress, allowing the car to grip the road better. This is great if you are racing a car down a twisty-turny road, as long as it is a flat road with no potholes and such.
That extra grip is why they put them on sports cars. This had led people to think that they are somehow “better” tires, so now everybody wants them (plus some people think they look cool or whatever).
For everyday driving though, they suck. Those low and stiff sidewalls may be great for gripping the road, but the fact that the tires don’t deform also means that you feel every bump and imperfection in the road, making your ride much less comfortable. Your car is also more susceptible to damage from things like potholes and train tracks, as noted in the OP.
Most people don’t race down twisty roads on their way to work every day, so for most people, they are experiencing all of the drawbacks of low profile tires while experiencing few, if any, of the benefits of them. If you drive a car so that low profiles would be a benefit to you, chances are you’ll get a speeding ticket or a reckless driving ticket at some point. If you aren’t driving in such a way that you are risking a ticket, then you don’t need low profile tires. They aren’t going to do anything useful for you.
If you want low profile tires just because you think they look cool, that’s a good enough reason to get them. Unfortunately, a lot of people get them because of their looks without realizing that they are ruining their comfort because of them.
another part of the reason wheel size has been growing on cars (necessitating lower profile tires) is that cars and trucks are being fitted with bigger and bigger brakes for longer brake life.
This. The smallest I can go on my SUV is 18”, because of the bigger brakes.
And they are ever so much more expensive than ordinary rims, too.
It lets them use those killer wings.
Sounds like this is about the tires with shallow sidewalls that let rims be dented easily.
But, literally, thin tires could be tires with a thin construction, that is, inside and outside of the tire unusually close. Bicycle tires are like this, and they’re more fragile than car tires. Such tires may give better fuel efficiency or help keep vehicle weight down or whatever. They’d have vulnerability problems
Low profile tires handle better (less sidewall movement/stiffer tire), and they allow larger brakes without having comically huge wheels + tires on your car.
However, like others have said, this comes with a cost- the smaller sidewall means that there’s just flat-out less tire to absorb bumps and what-not. I mean, I can hit stuff with my pickup (245/70 R16) at speed that would completely wreck most low profile tires because I have something like 7-8" of tire to deform between the tread and rim.
A friend of mine once dubbed those kinds of cars, “shopping carts.” I’ve never looked at them the same way since.
Oh, look, it has a tin-can muffler, too – so that when you rev the engine, it can be heard all the way over in the next county. This is proof of the driver’s virility and is believed to be highly attractive to women. Add the irresistible killer wings and you’ve really got something.
In my VW GTI I have had multiple flats because of potholes. Never again will I get low profile tires.
Each flat tire is accompanied by a burst of profanity and a quick call to my local tire place to make sure they have one in stock. This event usually costs over $200.
I think my favorite tire moment was when I hit a pothole while crossing over the Delaware River into NJ on a terribly cold February morning. I had to change the flat on the bridge, as it rocked and rolled with each big truck passing by.
That car has been in hibernation since December–pot hole season. I’m not sure when I will have the courage to start driving it again.
Also known as a “fart can”.
In northern NJ the roads are probably worse than near DE, especially in the most densely populated places nearer NY. They raised the NJ gas tax recently to address this supposedly, no evidence of it so far AFAICS. OK that’s a digression. But anyway I agree on any car where you have an option of bigger or smaller wheel (lower or higher profile tire) when you buy, don’t get the optional bigger wheels if you live in this area. If you switch seasonally to winter tires (which is mandatory if your other tires are ‘summer’ aka ‘performance’), you can often get a size smaller wheels for the winter set than is standard on the car (or your particular trim level) and they’ll still fit around the brakes. And that’s desirable for traction in deep snow as well as more buffer from unfilled potholes during the winter. Tirerack has AFAIK accurate information on this by model, probably other retailers too.
On some high performance cars you’re gaining a little track performance with bigger wheels, but marginal for how you should ever be driving on public roads. Of course that’s true of a lot of other performance features of cars offering low profiles as OEM option. It can be a nice feeling to have performance even that you seldom use, everyone can have their own opinion on the value of that. But it can be a painful feeling for daily driving in this area to have racing suitable suspensions and low profile tires, particularly combining the two.
Edit to add on two sets of wheels and tires. If you have optional bigger wheels and lower profile tires but use all seasons, that really raises a question mark. Summer tires on smaller wheels are likely to beat all seasons on bigger wheels for cornering in warm weather, summers on the same wheels obviously will. Winters, in areas where it’s not safe to use summer tires year round (like the US northeast), on smaller wheels will likely beat all seasons on bigger wheels for cornering in cold/wet and definitely in ice/snow. So all seasons on optional bigger wheels really starts to look like it’s just for the cool (to some eyes) appearance. Which is fine if the ride is OK on the roads where you live, but if that driver was really focused on squeezing out extra performance he or she would have two sets of wheels/tires.
I bought a used Jeep with some Kenda tires on it. They were paper thin and I punctured two the first time I went off-roading. I mount my own tires, and have done hundreds, and these were the flimsiest constructed tires I’ve ever seen.
Pulled them off and sold them, cheap.