Michelin Americas Truck Tire's newest drive tire, the XDA-5, incorporates new technologies that boost its expected life by 30% and enable it to “regenerate” new tread over time.
Through the Michelin Durable Technologies (MDT) package, the tire maker offers advances in casing and tread design that enable the XDA-5 to handle more load without the need to increase size or air pressure.
Don Baldwin, Michelin's product-marketing manager, says the XDA-5 offers improvements in three dimensions. First, as the tire wears, new grooves and tread blocks appear, effectively regenerating to give the tire a second life.
Second, the XDA-5's tread is wider, offering better stability and more even wear. Matrix siping in the tread blocks not only helps prevent irregular wear, but also maximizes the tire's fuel economy profile. Finally, new compounding in both the casing and tread help the overall tire last longer.
Baldwin says the real key to longer life is the double-wave Matrix sipes, which give the XDA-5 tire's 30/32nds tread blocks the ability to lock together in all directions, delivering rigidity and resistance to scrub, and minimizing the irregular wear normally associated with deep tread block designs.
At the base of the Matrix siping, a raindrop groove is molded into the tread block that reveals a new groove when the tread has 10/32nds remaining, a feature of the self-regenerating tread. This mechanism enables the XDA-5 to offer renewed grip and more usable tread, which ultimately result in longer life, according to Baldwin.
Michelin is backing the XDA-5 with a guarantee that it will outlast the drive tire it replaces by at least 30%.
www.michelintruck.com
