I’m a good driver. I race my own cars, I practice on the track and I work on my car myself. I also buy and change my own tires. So I was pretty shocked to find out that what I thought I knew about tires was shaken by spending the day at Discount Tire’s test track with Treadwell Tire Guide team.
You might know the Treadwell Tire Guide which allows you to simply input your vehicle year, make, and model (or license plate number to keep it easy), location, and driving style, and the system recommends the best tires for you. But how do they know? To show us, they invited us to their test facility in Texas to go through what they do in testing the tires they recommend.
This story is 100% human-researched and written based on actual first-person knowledge, extensive experience, and expertise on the subject of cars and trucks. No AI was used.
Treadwell’s Test Facility Recreates All the Road Hazards
Nestled in the plains of Texas about an hour outside of San Antonio sits Discount Tire’s Treadwell Research Park testing facility. Inside the gates, Discount Tire and Treadwell researchers test 95% of the tires sold at Discount Tire stores.
The data from this testing, along with data from Discount Tire stores across the country, is used to power the online Treadwell Tire Guide to help customers make informed decisions on their tires.
The 900-acre testing facility features 13 different test surfaces to allow researchers to test tires in any environment, from deep sand to wet asphalt, to boulders, to a potholed street.
Each scenario calls for a different tire for optimum control, comfort, and drivability – an off-road tire won’t handle on asphalt, and a summer performance tire won’t handle well on dirt!
Read: I Need New Tires. Should I Buy the Same Ones My Car Came With?
Does Water on the Pavement Make a Difference?
Among the tests we ran through was the Wet Vehicle Dynamics Area, or wet track. This is a large square of asphalt covered with water flowing from small fountains on all four sides.
I was presented with two identical BMW 3 Series cars. The only difference between the two cars (other than the color) were the tires. The researchers set up a small driving course in this area, complete with short, tight turns, wide, long turns, straightaways, and a hard braking zone to test all aspects of handling.
I was encouraged to try to drive the course as quickly as possible after watching the experts run a few laps. As you would expect, traction was limited due to the constant running water over the pavement, but “lap times” weren’t a concern here. What the researchers look for here is the handling difference between the two tires.
Read: How Important Are Your Tires? How to Make the Right Tire Choice
The Difference In Tire Performance Was Shocking
When I stepped into the second car, I was shocked at the difference. I could immediately tell the tires had less traction.
My instructor even commented that I started confidently like I had ended with the first car, but almost instantly let off the gas (subconsciously) because I felt the decrease in traction. While my laps were not timed, I have absolutely no doubt that I was significantly slower around the course in BMW #2.
In turns where traction was OK before, I suddenly lost control of the rear of the car. Some others who were experiencing Treadwell with me even lost control and spun. The back end of the car fishtailed when I tried accelerating in a straight line. And it took significantly longer to slow down in the hard braking zone.
When I stepped out of BMW #2, the instructor explained that the first BMW was equipped with a standard all-season tire, while the second BMW was fitted with dedicated snow tires. As counterintuitive as it may seem, he explained, the things that make a tire as good as a snow tire make it as bad as a rain tire, and vice versa.
How Do Similar Tires Compare? That Was Our Next Test
You probably won’t find yourself losing control of your car in a left-hand turn just because you purchased a cheaper all-season tire. For the sake of the wet pavement demonstration, Treadwell chose two markedly different tires, but it does serve to show the importance of running the correct tires for the season.
To really tell the story, we tested more similar tires, again, installed on two, identical BMW 3-series. Soon we set out to the track to drive two laps in the BMWs: one on each set of tires.
Sudden Stops on Wet Pavement at High Speed: Harrowing, I Know
On the first lap, I would accelerate up to around 70 MPH, veer off to the wet braking area, and do an emergency braking maneuver, where I brake as hard as possible, engaging ABS to bring the car to a complete stop. This tests the wet braking capability of the tire.
After that, I would proceed straight at around 45 MPH, getting a feel for the tires by gently swerving left and right, then go onto the banked turn. On the banked turn, I would let the car drift left as if I accidentally drifted out of my lane, and pull the car back into the right-hand lane, testing the loaded handling of the tire (loaded because the tires are already under load due to the right-hand corner).
Continuing onto the second straightaway, I would remain straight and accelerate to 55 MPH before letting off the gas, turning off the AC, and listening as the car bumps onto the smooth asphalt, then back onto the rough asphalt. This tests the road noise of the tire.
On the final curve of the first lap, I get up to around 45 MPH, then accelerate to 60 MPH, while trying to maintain the car in the right lane, paying attention to how much extra I need to turn the steering wheel to account for speed.
I Pushed the Cars to their Limits – And Then Had to Stop
On the second lap, I again accelerate to 70 MPH but this time I positioned the car in the dry braking lane before emergency braking. After coming to a stop, when I proceed straight again, I do a few emergency lane changes, jerking the car hard to the left or right, and correcting to remain straight in the other “lane.”
On both turns, I repeat the same process as the first lap, but on the second straight, I take the detour onto the different road surfaces. I make a point to drive over the reflectors or potholes, turn off the AC, and listen to the road noise from the tire.
My instructor explained to me that they differentiate between the road noise from hitting a bump and the general road noise you hear from your tires at low speeds, which they call pattern noise, as it is caused by the pattern of the tire.
All Season Tires Are Amazing — For the Right Reasons
This time, I started in the BMW with budget all-season tires. They were not bad tires by any means, but the difference between these and the second BMW, with premium all-season tires, was marked. The first car stopped at around 180 feet in the wet and 120 feet in the dry. The second car stopped at only 150 feet in the wet and 110 feet in the dry.
The instructor explained that it is very challenging to design a tire to stop shorter in the dry, as all tires do pretty well in dry conditions, so even a 10-foot differential is great. In the wet, though, that 30-foot differential is TWO car lengths.
The premium tire could be the difference between rear-ending the car in front of you and not – so maybe it is worth that markup.
Further down the track, in the emergency lane change test, the premium all-season tire handled noticeably better, allowing me to maintain better control of the car with the same steering inputs. It was quieter both over bumps and not, and droned less, meaning a quieter cabin while you drive. On both tests on the curves, the premium tire required less steering input, a testament to the increased traction it had.
Even as an Experienced Driver, I learned Something New
For the rest of the experience, I was able to go through a couple of the other modules Treadwell uses to test their tires, although there was no side-by-side comparison. This included a steep concrete hill climb for off-road vehicles, a sand handling course with deep sand, a few off-road obstacles, a boulder garden, and an on-track experience with the new Lotus Emira.
I was shocked at the possible difference between two similar tires. I have experienced many different tires in my automotive career and, coming from racing, I considered myself to be pretty in tune with different tire traction levels.
That being said, I have never had the opportunity to test two different tires back to back like this. The difference was astounding and will keep me from just buying the first tire recommended to me from now on.
Leaving Treadwell With That One Key Thing: Confidence
Buying tires is hard. Knowing the differences between different tires is clearly a studied process, and making the wrong choice can lead to being taken advantage of by a tire shop—or worse, an accident.
It’s comforting to see test centers like Treadwell’s that empower and educate consumers to make the right choice. That their advice isn’t simply based on consumer reviews or subjective data, but on statistics and data collected by a team of experts gives even more confidence.
