Not to beat a dead horse (am I in the top 5 posters yet?).... 8-)
1. If TireRack can heat cycle the tires at that cost and are not losing
money on it.
2. If heat cycling improves the life of the tire.
3. If the tire companies spend a lot of money trying to develop
compounds that will grip and yet last longer.
4. If the main complaint I hear about tires is that they don't last.
5. If the process used by Tire Rack is effective.
6. If the manufacturers could also implement the same process.
If all that is true, it seems to me (as uninformed as can be) that the
only reason not to do it would be one or more of the following:
A) Marketing thinks people will not be willing to pay $10 or so more per
tire (should be cheaper with economies of scale working for it). They
however do think that some people will pay more for it, but not most, so
they don't want to burden every tire with the cost. Plus they look bad
on a pricing sheet, since the other two companies don't already have
heat cycling prices built in.
B) Marketing is really not in favor of a tire that lasts longer. :-)
C) There is a performance trade off from a sticker tire, it may last
longer, but it's not as sticky? I am not saying this by the way.
D) Nobody has thought to do this at BFG/Kumho/Hoosier yet. They will
thank me later. :-)
Randy Chase
|