Tyre Construction:
From humble beginnings as a solid piece of rubber, the modern tyre bares little resemblance to its original design. Today’ tyres are now an intricately woven, clever piece of engineering available for an incredible amount of applications from bicycles through to Jet Aircraft. The modern tyre is a mixture of steel belts, advanced fabrics and top secret rubber compounds, which are made of around 40% natural rubber and 60% synthetic rubber. Most manufactures now include amongst many others, a chemical called silica which along with tread design helps to optimise the performance of the tyre in wet weather conditions.

If your car is no older than 20 years or so, you should be riding on radial tyres. Radial tyres wear much better than Cross-ply tyres, they have better heat resistance and will improve your fuel economy. They also have a far greater rigidity for when cars are cornering and the tyres are deforming.