Just a general question. Here’s my guess: tires can be made more comfortable by making the sidewall more squishy and flexible thus absorbing the impact, but what you compromise is rolling efficiency, thus fuel economy, and also, handling.
The Comfort Tread tires, made by Goodyear, are also among the lightest of tires, I suppose this helps the suspension system efficiently absorb impact as well.
Can you add anything to my understanding?
Yes, I am considering these tires as a replacement for my General Altimax HP tires. They are a lot more expensive though.
I’ve had Comfort-Treds on my Odyssey for 53,000 miles now. Smoother, quieter ride than the original tires. Same MPG, pretty good handling. They’re lasting pretty well too, I should get at least 80,000 miles out of them.
Not as ‘sharp’ handling as a performance tire would be the main thing I’d think of. However, tires from different makers can be so different, even when they’re the same type.
“Comfort Tread” is a marketing name. Don’t go overboard attributing any particular trait to this tire. Goldwing seems happy with them, check reviews and make your decision. All tires involve some compromises.
Designing tires involves compromises. In the case of ride comfort, the compromise is handling - in the sense of how quickly the tire reacts to steering input - not ultimate grip.
There is another compromise that I call the “technolgy triangle”: Traction, Treadwear, and Rolling Resistance (fuel economy). Tires with great fuel economy properties have sacrificed treadwear and/or traction in order to get that property. That’s why there are so many complaints about OE tires (tires that come on new vehicles) The vehicle manufacturer’s specs typically call for low level of rolling resiatance!
If it fits, going to a higher profile, larger diameter tire does wonders. Going from 60 to 65 helps a lot for example…with little additional need clearance. Of course some cars have NO additional room…then it’s plan B.
Goodyear must have a pretty good relationship with Mazda, because I can’t figure out how they got the Eagle RS-As on my Mazda. From TR.com, a replacement tire is $242 for the Easle RS-A The Yokohama Parada Spec-X is rated very good in all categories and only costs $178 per tire
“Goodyear must have a pretty good relationship with Mazda…”
Or maybe the other way around. It seems to me that the car manufacturer sends out specs to the tire manufacturers and picks the least expensive one that meets their specs and tests. Just because Mazda gets a great price from Goodyear doesn’t mean that price relationships between tire makers scale down to us. Yokohama rices to Mazda could have been higher.
If you are having rib cage pains, you will be sacrificing the pain. Don’t lean on the armrest either and the pain may go away by itself. If you are driving a car and not a 3/4 ton pickup, you probably aren’t in pain. Not that comfort treads would do any good inflated to 70 PSI even if they made them for pickups like that.
However, I did want to comment on your theory of a lighter tire creating a smoother ride; it does, although I doubt if the Comfort Tread is light enough to make any measurable difference… The concept you’ve referred to is call “sprung vs. unsprung weight”. All other factors being the same, low rolling weights (unsprung weights) pushing high body/chassis weights (sprung weights) will transfer less energy into the chassis and thus the seats. They’ll have less mass (less inertials energy) and be spushing more mass (also inertial energy).
It’s like a heavyweight boxer fighting a flyweight boxer. The flyweight can punch the heavyweight as hard as he wants, but he’ll have a hard time pushing him out of the ring. The flyweight is analogous to the wheel, the heavyweight analogous to the car’s body & chassis.
Conversely, if the heavyweight hits the flyweight he’ll probably blow him right over the ropes. The heavyweight in this case is analogous to a “Bigfoot” wheel and the flyweight to a Ford Focus.
If all other factors are the same (they rarely are) the ratio between the sprung and unspung weights do make a difference. Your understanding of the theory is correct in that regard.