Why not make a tire that lasts 100,000 miles?

I’m afraid this analogy is not correct. Steel, like aluminum (but not titanium, surprisingly), can have an “infinite” fatigue resistance if not stressed too much to it’s yield point - less than 1/3 of yield strength, IIRC.

Steel belts were one of the great inventions towards creating safe, strong, reliable tires. I would be interested in seeing cites that show a clear detriment to using steel as opposed to nylon.

On a related note - IIRC, super high-performance tires on F1/CART/Drag Racers can have a coefficient of friction greater than 1.0. This happens if the material is soft enough to grip into the peaks and valleys of the road surface at the sorta-microscopic level.

Yup, back when I was involved in racing, I remember seeing coefficient figures for F1 qualifying tyres (so soft and sticky they’re only good for 2-3 laps) in the 1.8 range, and 1.0-1.2 is not uncommon for a race tire.

I bought my Cavalier in October, 1996.

November 2000 I changed the tires at 96,000 miles. They were Goodyear, R16, that’s all I can remember. If it weren’t for the snow, I could have kept driving on them.

My commute to work during most of that time was about 34 miles, pretty much all Highway. Coupled with rotation every 4-5 months proved to be good on the tires.

I found this in a search:

1 set of 100,000 mile tires
Les Schwab Tire Center

(http://www.columbia-center.org/blacktie/2000_auction_items.htm)

ANother idea would be a solid rubber Tire, I don’t remember what happened to that idea.

aha, they can only get so big before they start rubbing on the frame.

Too heavy.

Too stiff.

Too expensive.

Solid tires are also illegal for use on public roads. This law is mostly intended to keep farm equipment off of the roads, but a solid rubber car tire would also fall under it. IIRC, about 10 years ago, a company developed a compact spare tire that was made of rubber over a solid plastic core, so it didn’t need to be inflated. It was a great idea - you wouldn’t have to change a tire only to find your spare is also flat - but it died a quiet death because they found it impossible to get DOT approval.

I’ve never replaced a tire on my 1995 Geo Prizm (90,000+ miles, almost all highway trips of 100+ miles) due to tread wear. All the tires have been replaced by now, but it’s been because of punctures (most annoyingly, through the thickest part of the tread).

What can I say–the alley behind my garage is not kept very clean…

Again, all comes down to safety. A tire that lasts 100k miles would be made of such hard rubber that it wouldn’t stick to the road–as if you were constantly driving on a very slippery surface. Tires stick to roads because there’s some amount of friction; this wears the tires down gradually. There’s just a certain point of hardness where the desired tradeoff between stickiness and the life of the tire balance off.

I’ve got a nice set of Toyo Z800s on my car, and they’re supposed to be good for 100K. The tires that came on the car (don’t recall the brand) were rated for 40K, but I ran them to 63,000 or so. They were worn down to the steel belts but still held air, for the most part.

As has been said before, it’s very important to pay attention to your tires. Alignment problems or improper inflation can shorten their life considerably, and can be dangerous in the right situation.

Wait, I’ve got a simple solution. Make the TIRES out of asphalt and the ROADS out of rubber! That’d solve the tire wear problem!

Yeah, but what would you do when the road wore out? Change road every 80,000 miles, heh…

It’s hard to believe these two paragraphs were written by the same person!