I just had these tires siped in order to get better traction on snow and ice. I had this done along with re- balancing and rotation for the tune of around $600. The cost to sipe used tires is hight due to thy time it takes to pick all the pebbles out of the tires prior to siping. These are 16 ply tires on our lowboy tractor. The gain in traction is hard to quantify, but I feel it was well worth it. I am curious if anyone else does this. These tires have about 60,000 miles on them. If I can get 100k out of drive tires on our lowboy I will be happy.
Company I used to work for did that. Could only tell the difference on solid ice. Did lose pieces of tread on the trucks that were in the quarry more.
I had 3 sets of bfg DR444 that were way too hard on ice. I had them siped and it was like new tires. Never had any chunking or adverse affects from the siping. I now only use Michelin xdn2 or xds2 for drives, and its just not necc. There is 1 shop in Edmonton that will sipe tires, and they refuse to do used tires now because of the pebbles. I de pebbled the tires I brought in. Suprising how many 1 can get out of a tire.
The machine is like a sprial potato peeler that rotates and goes back and forth while the tire slowly turns. I suspect the crown of the tire probably made it difficult to sipe the shoulders. There is cuts into the shoulder, but not across it. The sipe is only about 1/4" deep at the most.
The shoulders evidently chunk out if they cut clear to the edge. The tire shops recommend not going clear to the edge, but they will do so if one requests it.
I am not sure how well the Michelins will hold up in our application, but I may try them next time for ride quality and traction if they have some that meet our weight requirements. Occasionally we get to 55k on the drives, and these tires that I have handle the weight very well, but they often require a lot of weight to balance them and ride rough under normal loads.
