MTFCA Forum

A participant in our recent tour suggested you fellows may be interested in these two photos.
Both cars are set up by a well respected, long time T owner, and both have covered about 3000km. The Wards Riversides are about 1/2 worn wjile the Blockleys still have the mould pips on the sides. Allan from down under.

The Blockleys may have a harder tread compound, which will extend wear at some expense in traction. A softer compound will give excellent traction , especially on pavement, but will wear faster, all else being equal. The Blockley tread appears to put a good deal of rubber on the road, which ought to help reduce wear and may improve traction on smooth pavement. High inflation pressure, especially on a lightweight car, will spare the outer edges of the tread while concentrating wear in the center area. Heavy loading or lower inflation pressure will do the opposite. A car driven mostly on straight, open roads may show less edge of tread wear than one driven mostly on curvy roads. Siped treads give good traction on wet roads, but may wear faster on dry roads.

The Wards tires are about half worn out at about 3000 Km (about 2,000 miles). This would imply that the tires would last about 4,000 miles. Is this typical mileage for Wards tires?

Art Mirtes

That sounds low to me. Conditions of use, and of the vehicle, and vehicle characteristics, all have a substantial impact on tread wear rates. Some drivers can destroy a set of tires very quickly, while others can keep tires in good condition for extended miles of service. Some road surfaces are a lot more more aggressive than others, and that affects tire mileage and traction. A coarse pavement surface will provide excellent traction, but it can chew up tires faster than a smoother surface.

I have 13000 miles on Universal T Drivers purchased in 2019. They still have some tread on them, especially the fronts. I recently bought another set of T-drivers to replace them....I had planned to get Blockleys but the tariff situation and general confusion over shipping put me off. I drive pavement 80% of the time, gravel the rest. I installed 6 oz of balance beads in each tube which may have helped. I also spent some time tracking down rims and wheels that run with little wiggle. I do use Blockley Tubes - they are clearly the best! I run about 63 psi per tire.

High ambient temperatures cause more rapid tire wear.

I can still see traces of the moulding dimples on the outer edges of the wards tread. It looks like the wear is more concentrated in the centre of the narrow tread Wards tyre, as would be expected. The wider, flatter tread on the Blockley tyre would mean a greater foootprint on the road and consequently less load on the tread.
On tours, these two cars spend much of their time following on another, often with driver changes at various stops. Both are well maintained by an experienced model T owner, making a comparison between the two easier to equate.

Allan from down under.

If I had the Wards tires, I'd try running a little lower inflation pressure. It's possible to wear the center tread of a tire to the cord while leaving close to half the tread on the outer edges by carrying too much air pressure for the load the tire is carrying. That's a waste of tire life. The Blockley tire appears to be wearing evenly.

Reducing the pressure to allow greater tread contact on the road is done to correct wear patterns on modern car tyres. My service centre just upped the pressure on my Mazda CX5 to take a make a bit more pf a crown in the tyres. I doubt you could lower the pressure in these little Wards tyres enough to make a difference without risking the tyre moving about on the rim and perhaps shearing off the valve stem.

Allan from down under.

A safe minimum pressure must be maintained. That said, the wear pattern shown indicates that some reduction in pressure would give better results. A tire that is undersized for the load it is carrying will typically show excess wear at the outer edges. According to Ford, the original equipment tires on Model Ts were fully adequate, and then some, for the car's loaded weight. A tire cannot deliver its potential service miles when irregular tread wear is occurring. Both under-inflation and over-inflation will reduce tire life and cause other problems, among them harsh ride, reduced traction, rim cuts, hard steering, poor fuel economy, and more.