Quote:
Originally Posted by tirebob
Honestly I think that is more a case of getting used to characteristics of a specific tire rather than them actually stiffening the sidewall itself (other than playing with air pressure of course).
This said, people often forget that a tire wears gradually in the reality of time. When a tire is brand new and the tread is very deep, it is natural to feel more flex (or sway or as you described "being on a boat" etc) as the taller tread blocks will squirm more under load, but as they slowly wear over time they don't feel the transition to them becoming less forgiving and more stable, so by the time it is time for new tires they might notice a dramatic difference between the old and new tires, especially when going to something with a very deep lug and higher sipe density.
Think of it to the extreme where they shave down race tires to a minimal tread depth, or run slicks instead of having any tread in the dry. That gives a tire the absolutely most stability when pushed to the extreme (along with a larger contact patch on the slicks). Even though it may not be as dramatic with street tires, it still is a very real effect.
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Just curious, I have always thought that wear on a tire goes much faster for the first half of tread wear depth than the last half simply because of tire squirm on the taller tread. My own experience is I can get about 25,000 km on the first half and from there it takes about 50,000 more to get down close to the wear bars.