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Ultimate track tire guide | 200tw, 100tw, street-legal track and R-comps
Photography by Chris Tropea
Performance tires have traditionally traded speed for comfort. After all, does a little hum on the highway matter when you’re clipping apexes?
But we noticed something while driving on the Maxxis Victra VR-1: For a 200tw tire that has performed well in our track tests, it’s still rather quiet and civil around town. So we asked questions–like what causes a tire to be loud and, without giving up trade secrets, how do tire companies mitigate those noises?
“There is a difference between road noise and pattern noise,” explains John Wu, an engineer by training and now director of product strategy at Maxxis. “Road noise is what you hear when the road is coarse and you hear this ‘roar’ inside the cabin.
“Pattern noise,” he continues, “is usually a more cyclic howl that you hear when the road is glass smooth. It’s especially bad on mud tires, as I’m sure you’ve heard them on these big, lifted trucks driving down the highway.”
Reducing that pattern noise, Wu explains, is a big concern when designing tires for road use: “Pattern noise has been proven to cause driver fatigue, and certain frequencies can resonate with interior parts, causing even more annoyance.”
A true slick, he notes, produces the least pattern noise. It’s the tread needed to provide wet weather performance that creates that howl: “The strategic placement of grooves determines how quiet a tire is. The location, shape and dimensions of each of the grooves will have huge influence on the pattern noise. Other things such as profile, mold design and other factors all play a role as well.”
A Tire Rack tech piece shares more on the process: “If every tread block (pitch) featured the exact same size and shape, each one would generate the exact same sound tone and intensity as they rolled through contact with the road. This would result in all four tires contributing to an unpleasant monotonous tone.
“In order to keep that from happening, tire designers use computers to sequence multi-pitch tread designs that subtly vary tread block size and shape to randomize the road contact and resulting noise. They also offset circumferential block placement of neighboring ribs to reduce noise by aligning lateral grooves with adjacent tread blocks.”
“Every tire segment has different levels of acceptance,” Wu explains, “so our engineers and product planning team set targets for each new product accordingly. For the VR-1, we designed it to be a true street tire–therefore, our engineers didn’t pursue dry performance at all costs but made sure the tire worked well in the rain, wears well, heat cycles well, rides well and isn’t too loud.”
Civilized? Pffft...
If you are running 200tw tires, tire noise is the least of your problems.
Thought it is nice to know that you can run them to and from an event and not be droned out of your car.
True story, it was time to put new tires on our Civic Si, and on the way back from JG & Duck Tire Svc. I was like, these are way too quiet for 200tw.
Still not understanding how a mostly smooth tire can be "loud". I mean, I hear enough people mention it to accept that it can be a thing, but I don't get it.
I can't hear anything above the sound of my Miata exhaust.
The Nexen N Fera SUR4G were really quiet on the road and they didn't tramline at all, despite the pretty aggressive alignment my car had on it. The downside was that they were also absolutely silent when you were driving the car hard, there was no noise until you were overdriving the car and it just chewed them to bits.
In reply to NickD :
Yeah, somewhere there's a desirable point between quiet and talkative. Some communication at the limit is appreciated.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Personal experience with R888R's on an LS400 tells me that they have a weird hum to them that is not exactly pleasant. Even at low speeds, so I don't think it's so much the wind creating it in this specific car's case. Too big a smile on my face autocrossing a big car like that to really care, but yes, it's a thing. A weird thing, admittedly.
Other unexpectedly civil tire? Kuhmo V730, in the ubiquitous 205/50/15 Miata fitment. Drove it 500 miles round trip for an autocross last year, and was pleasantly surprised at how quiet and rain worthy it was, in new condition. Now that it's had a half dozen events on it... I suspect it wouldn't do as well in the rain. =P
In reply to te72 :
When I look at the V730 tires that have more than a half dozen events on them, they sure don't look like they would work on the wet. The outside 2/3 is a slick.
They're good tires for dry autocross though. I've driven on them for a few events in my friend's 19 civic sport, and I was impressed. He trailers it to events, so not much street driving.
If you have unmuffled side pipes, all tires are quiet.
If your HPDE run group tracks after the Spec Miata group, it won't matter how quite your tires were before you took the track.
After three quarters of a lap of pretty severe extra rubber rumble, I threw a chunk of rubber at a car as I pointed him by that looked like it could have been a roof shingle.
In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :
Doc, at that point in a tire's life, you're right. When new though, I was able to drive across the state (Wyoming) and back, in pretty heavy rain on the way back too. Didn't miss a beat even at 70+ mph. Would probably make a decent street tire for a couple years, if you're like me and only get 3-4 months of decent weather.
Tire howl is a real thing. I can't believe some of the tires some spec as OEM. My Civic Si is all tire noise right now. My wife's Tiguan was the same way. When we changed tires on her car at 30k miles it was a totally different and better car. Updating the tires on my Colorado also helped quite a bit. I will be doing Continental All Terrain Contacts on my wifes new Tahoe in another 25k miles or so too.
te72 said:In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Personal experience with R888R's on an LS400 tells me that they have a weird hum to them that is not exactly pleasant. Even at low speeds, so I don't think it's so much the wind creating it in this specific car's case. Too big a smile on my face autocrossing a big car like that to really care, but yes, it's a thing. A weird thing, admittedly.
Other unexpectedly civil tire? Kuhmo V730, in the ubiquitous 205/50/15 Miata fitment. Drove it 500 miles round trip for an autocross last year, and was pleasantly surprised at how quiet and rain worthy it was, in new condition. Now that it's had a half dozen events on it... I suspect it wouldn't do as well in the rain. =P
Interesting about the V730 being more civilized, I had the previous V720 and those roared like I had a bad wheel bearing.
In reply to aw614 :
Might also be the car. My Miata is all stock in regards to suspension, so no additional NVH from poly or solid bushings, plus it's a soft top. It's not exactly a quiet highway cruiser to begin with. Perhaps those same tires on a different car would be unbearable.
In reply to te72 :
I can second the V730's. I have 255/275's and they are quieter than my Michelin PS3+'s.
Maybe we should demand Noisy Tires for the all electric cars.. The oddly ominous Shepard scale sound that the Hyundai hybrid and electrics makes at low speed is well, ominous.
I bet at parking lot and city crosswalk speeds all tires are quiet anyway so it probably wont matter much.
I once had Dunlop Grantrek mud tires on my Samurai, it sounded exactly like the Scorpion tank from Halo on the highway 
A million years ago, back before 200tw tires existed, we accidentally had some Yokohama R-comps mounted backwards . I believe they were A032s. Wow they howled.
Hankook RS4's are dead silent on my Fiesta ST at all times except at the very limit on track.
Same car with Federal RS-RR's sounded like a jet taking off underneath me just driving to the grocery store.
David S. Wallens said:A million years ago, back before 200tw tires existed, we accidentally had some Yokohama R-comps mounted backwards . I believe they were A032s. Wow they howled.
IME, A032Rs did that even when they were mounted the right way.
The Generals I had on the G35 sounded like mud grips. They made RE71s seem silent by comparison. The noise took a lot of the fun out of driving it on the street. The switch to the Indy 500s was bliss.
The Falken Rubitech A/Ts on the Touareg are quieter than both of them.
I had already decided that I won't be running 200tw tires on the Mustang due to the noise and it looks like the Maxis don't come in a 19.
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