ADDITIONAL TECHNOLOGY

Conventional sipes are wide at the top, narrow at the base and decrease in size as the tread wears down, sacrificing wet performance with tire wear. Thus, as a conventional tire wears, it loses its tread pattern and looks more and more like a racing slick. Wet performance suffers, because shallower, worn tread channels lose the ability to evacuate water efficiently. This means more water comes between the tire and the road, resulting in less actual contact and reducing wet traction and handling.

Bridgestone's Key Hole Sipe is a tread pattern feature that helps solve these problems. A Key Hole Sipe is a slot with a cylindrical channel at the base. In a cross section of the tire tread, this slot-and-channel configuration resembles a key hole. As the tread wears, the "key holes" emerge to help ensure a consistent tread pattern. These sipes help maintain continued wet performance and new tire appearance.

5º Pitch Noise Reduction is a specialized approach to tread pattern design that reduces tire noise levels for quieter driving. Tread block elements are arranged to produce noise-canceling sound waves when the tire is in motion. Because the sound waves created by the individual blocks constantly cancel each other out, the noise of the tire moving on the road surface is significantly reduced.

Power-V is a tread pattern design born of Firestone's Indy® technology for rain tires. By dispersing water to the sides of the tire, the v-shaped pattern allows better water discharge and improves wet performance. The Power-V pattern elements incorporate a high/low angle approach to better discharge water from the area in contact with the wet road.

Conventional tires evacuate water in a straight line. VRG (Variable Radius Groove) is a tread design that controls water displacement with a high-volume, side-to-rear spray. This unique pattern maintains a larger contact patch, which delivers excellent wet grip and dramatically reduces the risk of hydroplaning.

Uni-Directional Pattern is a tread pattern design that maximizes both wet and dry performance, as well as other tire characteristics. By specifying that the tread pattern is to be mounted on the vehicle in a single direction only, the many design compromises found in conventional tires which can be mounted in two directions are eliminated. This gives us the ability to include a wider variety of specific performance characteristics such as high resistance to hydroplaning in each tire.

Spiral WrapT is a continuous nylon wrap that encircles the whole tire. Spiral Wrap provides a higher level of uniformity, helping the tire hold its original shape, and enhancing performance, which helps achieve high speed capability.