Siping your own tires for ice/snow

[Rockhounder]

Hey all, I have now lived through a couple winters in Big Bear Ca, and have found that the M/T tires don't do so well/very poor in black ice and slush. So, I finally decided to sipe my own tires, with a grid pattern that would increase my traction on icy surfaces.

I used a dremel and a diamond wheel, cutting diagonal lines that are about 1 mm wide and 2 mm deep. Each tire took about 45 minutes to do. Wow! what a difference! I would say stopping power was easily twice, and where I always slid a little around near our house, it gripped a lot better, and no more sliding sideways on an angled street portion.

As an aside, have any of you ever used the GT Radial Komodo Plus tires I have pictured here? very interesting sidewall patterning. It does tend to work good in mud, and grips rocks and gravel well. I got them, mounted and balanced for $180 each... great value. 13.5x33 r15


here are some pics of doing the cutting, and also how the tread looks in the snow and on the tire. It adds all these little compressed ridges that allow the tire to really lock into the snow for better grip! Couple of weeks ago, we got like 5 feet of snow dumped over a few days.....

 

[GoodEnoughforGabe]

Awesome! Thanks for the share


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mtnkid85]

Looks good, I like the cross pattern. I have always sipped my tires with a simple carpet knife, generally following the shape of the lugs.
Just watch your spinning in the rocks because they will chunk out easier now.

 

[Rockhounder]

Looks good, I like the cross pattern. I have always sipped my tires with a simple carpet knife, generally following the shape of the lugs.
Just watch your spinning in the rocks because they will chunk out easier now.

Ye, I was careful to only go down about 2mm (roughly the thickness of a pencil lead). I read that most of the work is being done by the edges of each cut, not deep down. Since I did this, I have driven a couple of thousand miles on dry los angeles freeways, so they are starting to disappear. Might have to retouch them up soon. I didn't want to do the big/deep siping, as that is definitely a recipe for chunked rubber problems..... then it's almost impossible to keep your tires balanced so they roll smoothly on freeway speed driving.

My wife is going to sew up some tire socks soon here, using some strong terry cloth type material that we found at Michael Levines upholstery fabric store in downtown LA. Will send pics and evaluation on those when finished. They should work pretty good, from what our friends from Norway told us... seems that many there do that with old sweatshirts.... you stick like glue even on the worst black ice.(supposedly). Anybody here have experience with this form of traction enhancement?

 

[IdaSHO]

45 minutes per tire?

No thanks. It cost less than $10 and 2 minutes per tire to have them siped at a tire shop.


Siping does work though. Much better on the slick stuff.

 

[Coachgeo]

while true, tire shop cheaper... there are tires they won't sipe... such as the the tall military tires I got and 2 of my VW tires with what they say is too much wear (they want to sell you tires instead). Though Im sure lawyers doing the CYA thing just in case is part of it as well. I had to call around. Most tires shops said.. "what is siping?... no we dont do that here" Only Le Schwab did sipping around here

 

[IdaSHO]

When siping first started getting popular, I found it was VERY difficult to get a shop to sipe used tires.

It makes sense, as the machine and the blades see more wear when siping a tire that has been on the ground, potentially loaded with small rocks.


However in the past few years, I've never had the problem getting them siped.

Just re-siped tires for the wife's Rav last fall actually, right before our winter hit.

Machine siping only goes so deep, so a re-sipe was needed to keep me happy.

Maybe they have changed their stance on it, or its simply luck of the draw for who you get at the tire shop. I dont know.


BTW, all of my dealings are at Les Schwab. Even if I mail-order tires from say, tirerack, I always have Schwab mount/balance them.

 

[Rockhounder]

45 minutes per tire?

No thanks. It cost less than $10 and 2 minutes per tire to have them siped at a tire shop.


Siping does work though. Much better on the slick stuff.

That is true, our local tire shop up here will do that as well, but the number of sipe edges you get (the actual part of the siping that does the actual work on ice type surfaces) is 1/10th the amount of channeling the small waffle pattern I did. (each lug now has about 15 linear inches of the 90 degree edging needed for compression grip). Remember, it is not how deep the sipes are, but the actual edges that do the work. The reason people sipe down deep is because you don't want to have to keep doing it every couple thousand miles, so it is a compromise based on longevity of the siping, versus how deep you have to go, and of course putting lots of really deep cuts is another way to have your tires shred a lot faster on inclement hard surfaces.

I just decided to go all out and perhaps it was overboard, in terms of time, but it was really great to feel the difference. I will probably do the same thing next year, but figure out a possibly more time saving way. I was thinking that if I welded together 040 steel (like old kitchen knifes) in the crisscross edge pattern onto a thick steel plate backing that I hook up to a big 250 watt soldering iron, then I could burn in the grooves by heat melting the rubber on contact. Then each tire lug would take just a few seconds each with a single press. I could even double the number of lines for a really spectacular amount of edging.

 

[Hillbilly Heaven]

6 blade tire wiping tool $90
http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Speedway-Super-Siper,2677.html

 

[mtnkid85]

6 blade tire wiping tool $90
http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Speedway-Super-Siper,2677.html

Ive used that tool before, it kinda sucks. Really nice quality but pushing those blades is harder than you might think and you can really can only go one direction with it. I prefer a single blade carpet knife so you can follow the lugs.

 

[Stumpalump]

I use this one. http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Deluxe-110-Volt-250-Watt-Grooving-Iron,6583.html
It's been made forever and you can get all sorts of heads for it. I'm one of the few that cuts tires but the pay off on the dirtbikes or especially the sand rail is priceless. Not a dam thing wrong with using a cutoff wheel or grinder but it's messy. I used a fan to blow the chunks and smoke off of me. I cut the sand paddles down to the cords to lighten them up and then trim the sides of the paddles off so it will drift. A flapper disk on the angle grinder cleans the sides up after grooving really well. A used Swamper Bogger or dirt cheap used thornburg tire is the best bang for the buck if you grove them. Any old tire with some fresh cuts in it works great.