Sidewall stiffness

[Thomas Washburn <thomasw@retail.com>]

Lawrence & Francisca Leong <leongccl@pacific.net.sg> wrote:

> > Does anyone know if the "stiff sidewall" claim is true for A509s?
> > How about for AVSi?
>
> Never heard about this.  P'raps over here all tyre shops use the 
> hydraulic press to mount tyres.  I've used A-509, A-510, RE-71, 
> orginal Gatorbacks; all mounted in the same fashion (at different 
> shops).
> 
> Purely empirical data point:  The A-509 had the _least_ stiff 
> sidewall of the above.  Hard cornering the first few times was a 
> rather interesting experience :-)
>
> Lawrence

A friend of mine had a Porsche 944 Turbo with rear 225/50ZR-16
Pirelli P-Zeros.  One day, he accidentally ran over a sharp bit 
of debris.

We got out of the car and inspected the tires.  All four looked
normal, from the outside.  Then, I looked underneath, and
discovered that the right rear had a gaping hole in its inside
sidewall, big enough to stick your hand into.  The tire was
completely deflated, yet it supported the car without obvious
distortion!

FWIW, the first tire place he had mount these tires had complained 
that they had been very difficult to mount.  They even managed to 
bend one of his rims trying.

- Tom