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| Australia’s Starfire team travelled to America to see Starfire put its RS-R 1.0 tyre to the test against three popular brands of Asian-made tyres available in Australia.
Just south of San Antonio,Texas, is the Tyre & Vehicle Test Center (TVTC), a 1,000 acre facility where professional product evaluators conduct all aspects of on-vehicle testing on bitumen courses, for product development and competitor benchmarking purposes.
The Results
At the end of each test, all the data and times were entered in to a computer and analysed. For the Dry Handling and Wet Handling tests, a high precision timing system, accurate to 1/1000th of a second, measured the times of each set of tyres tested. The charts show the final results of the Dry and Wet Handling tests with the Starfire RS-R 1.0 tyre proving to be the number one tyre in the wet and the shortest stopping distance in the wet.
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Test 1: Wet Stopping
The Wet Stopping test shows how far it takes for the vehicle to stop under wet conditions.
The vehicle approaches at a speed of 60 mph (96 kph) before performing a full ABS stop.
Instruments inside the car measure the distance the car travels before it comes to a complete stop.
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Test 1: How safe are Starfire tyres in the wet?
The Starfire tyre was the fastest to stop in the wet while the well known Korean Brand B was the slowest, imagine if those people were standing in front of the car!
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Test 2: Wet Handling
To test a tyres ability to grip and resist aquaplaning in the wet, they are subjected to a wet weather slalom course.
At speeds of up to 112kph the tyres are pushed to the limit on the 1.6km course which has a controlled and even coverage of water to simulate wet weather driving conditions.
The fastest time indicates the highest level of wet weather grip.
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Test 3: Dry Handling
The Dry Handling test is the most comprehensive test for the tyres overall dry performance.
The test covers all aspects of everyday driving from long high speed straights, tight off camber turns and rapid direction changes whilst trying to complete the course in the fastest time possible.
The performance of the tyre is pushed to its limits due to the high speeds achieved, up to 80mph (128 kph).
This test can give consumers extra confidence as everyday driving rarely achieves these conditions.
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