Journalist Thom Cannell Goes Tire Testing At Treadwell Tire (Discount Tire)

Need Tires?
Our Treadwell Experience

By Thom Cannell
Senior Editor and Technology Desk Lead
Michigan Bureau
The Auto Channel

Does your car, truck or SUV need tires right now? Or are you planning for winter ice and snow or next summer’s sweltering heat? Are you willing to spend several minutes to get the best tires for your vehicle, location and driving style and perhaps save money?

Your quest for the perfect tire has an answer, a solution based on data and experience — and it’s free.

We were recently hosted by Discount Tire, a 1,200-store chain. Though located in the Midwest, we’ve used Discount Tire often, with no understanding how massive the company is. We visited their test facility—Treadwell, former Cooper Tire multi-arena test track in Pearsall, Texas, jammed with wet-and -dry skid pads, an oval track, a boulder-crawl, wet 30° traction hill, mud-traction pit, durability test areas and trail handling off-road test areas. Treadwell is devoted to one mission, testing tires for your safety. “We don’t sell tires,” said CEO Dean Muglia, “We empower customers and help tire manufacturers make better tires.”

Treadwell Research Park is near San Antonio, TX, covering 900 acres with multiple buildings dedicated to your driving safety. For instance, in all the tires we’ve tested, including visits to tracks belonging to BFGoodrich, Continental, Goodyear and Michelin, we have never tested wet traction tire-to-tire, back-to-back, or experienced similar dry traction and road noise tests. We’ve not compared different brand’s wet-and-dry braking, noise and high-speed evasion tire-to-tire, and absolutely never felt the difference between a new tire and a well-worn tire. We did, it’s eye-opening and destructive of several cherished illusions.

On a wet skid pad driving identical BMW 330s, the difference in acceleration-traction, evasion, under-and -oversteer of competitive tires was astounding and boldly in-our-face. That test between a Michelin and a Goodyear tire convinced us that the Michelin was the tire to buy—until an engineer said “Well, the Michelin is three-season and great in the wet, but not nearly as good in snow and ice as the Goodyear.” Wow! There remains a reason for All Season tires.

We had similar experiences on the dry oval doing 70-0 ABS panic stops in the wet and in the dry (106’ versus 146+’ in one instance), evaluating noise from harsh surfaces and the thump produced by potholes. Have you ever considered how steering loads increase in turns, how much steering lock you need to add to hold a line? Again, the tire that made us happiest on a hot Texas summer day not be the best tire for a Midwesterner in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

More fun, and far more subjective, was stopping a Jeep on a 30° slope to see if that tire and 2WD would propel us upwards. Typically not, though we only tested one tire to understand this test. The same for a boulder crawl which, having actually done so on many trails, is a brutal test of vehicle, spotter, tire and conditions.

Off road, on sandy high-speed trails rutted and rocky, there wasn’t time to test A-to-B for traction, or mud chugging, or pulling out of muddy water up slick rock. Jeeps on 37” tires are great fun, until our driving caught us out and swiped a nearby scrub oak. We attribute that to being in normal automatic drive and a tire with less-than-perfect side grip, or driver error.

Why does Discount Tire devote its resources for a test track (operated by Smithers Material Science and Engineering — Smithers operates globally and this facility is for rent 100+ days per year to tire manufacturers)? Their answer, “To cut through the marketing and make Discount Tire a trusted expert,” according to David Ginsberg, Chief Corporate and Strategy Officer for Discount Tire, who helped design Treadwell, “Customers are often unsure of what they need, how to balance cost, tire life, handling and fuel economy. Treadwell (their online selection tool) solves problems and lets customers prioritize how they drive for where and when they drive.” Tom Williams chief experience officer noted that people don’t like buying tires. “We can provide piece of mind, consistency, and often will recommend a less-expensive tire based on their driving habits and location.”

Tires are not, as we’re led to believe by marketing, perfect in every situation. They are complex objects designed around specific trade-offs and explicit compromises. Great traction means more wear; better wet traction may deliver slightly longer dry braking; the best snow/ice tires don’t last through a hot summer.

A majority of Discount Tire stores are in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Many others are located in the Midwest, all are company owned and all provide free tire-related services. Unlike other chains (Goodyear and Firestone come to mind) they don’t perform engine repairs, oil changes or do transmission work. Discount Tire fixes flats, adds air, performs tire balancing and rotation—free! Yes, no charge for these often-costly services. Chief tire guy Dr. John Baldwin told us “We're trying to help our customers maximize their investment, which (helps us) in the long run. We've done that for decades because we can help, we can inspect your tires, wheels, TPMS, lug nuts, windshield wipers, all are products we offer.”

Part of the company’s mission is to make transparent to customers not only what tire manufacturers claim, but what the real world delivers. Does the guarantee of 45,000 miles mean you’ll get that typical 3.5 years of use? Or will you, like others with that specific tire and wheel size on a particular vehicle average less—or more? The Treadwell tool, online or in-store, will tell you. And you can arrange priorities to suit your driving. Are you more interested in wet traction then dry, fuel economy than wear? Beyond this tire selection tool, the company pioneered a laser-based hand-held scan tool that examines the tread of your tires every visit. This builds a profile for you to judge when to buy new tires (TIP if you live in frequent rain: it’s when 4/1000s of tread remain, which is a full 2/1000s greater (above) the wear bars.)

How does Discount Tire understand the performance of worn tires? They grind tread from new tires and re-test them! John explained “We want to Discount Tire to get the point across of ‘What is your safety margin during the life of the tire as it wears’, because most people don't think about that. Rather, they think ‘I have 6/1000s and maybe that’s good enough.” We’ve been able to make (tire buying and tires in general) a lot more transparent to both customers and manufacturers. We are trying to eliminate the mystery of tires, and tire buying.”