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I would like to know if there is any special coating or special paint that can be applied to the tread of an automobile tire, strongly bonding to it, and which is strong enough and durable enough to be driven on. The purpose of this would be to extend the life of the tires that you bought for your car.

I would imagine that this special coating or paint has the characteristics of being able to adhere/grip the road in any weather condition and is durable enough to last at least a few thousand miles before being worn off of the tire's tread.

Is there any special coating or paint that will strongly bond to an automobile tire's tread and can be driven on?

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  • $\begingroup$ @DKNguyen, I will edit the Body text to better clarify what I am asking about. $\endgroup$
    – WaterSparkle351
    Commented Dec 8, 2023 at 21:17
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    $\begingroup$ Retread, also known as "recap", or a "remold" is a re-manufacturing process for tires that replace the tread on worn tires. Retreading is applied to casings of spent tires that have been inspected and repaired. It preserves about 90% of the material in spent tires and the material cost is about 20% compared to manufacturing a new one. $\endgroup$
    – user12750
    Commented Dec 9, 2023 at 18:41

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It is stated here that you get about 1mm of tire wear every 3600 miles.

https://www.blackcircles.com/helpcentre/tyres/how-many-miles-per-1mm-of-tread-depth

You're unlikely to find any coating more durable than the tire itself. The rate of wear also indicates that an unreasonably thick layer would be required.

And that's not even considering a hidden requirement that I assume you have, which is that it can be applied by yourself.

So it would seem that the coating you seek would simply be 1mm of the rubber the tire is already made of, rendering things moot.

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  • $\begingroup$ Incidentally the thicker the tread the quicker the wear rate, so you'd be better off applying a 1mm thickness coating every 3000 miles than a 2mm coating and hoping it lasts for 6000. $\endgroup$
    – Greg Locock
    Commented Dec 9, 2023 at 6:16
  • $\begingroup$ @GregLocock Really? Are you referring to the circumferential increase? Or something else? $\endgroup$
    – DKNguyen
    Commented Dec 9, 2023 at 18:38
  • $\begingroup$ No, radial of course. If you want circumferential, 6mm. $\endgroup$
    – Greg Locock
    Commented Dec 9, 2023 at 21:33
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To add a bit to DKNguyen's answer:

The wear resistance of rubber as used in tire manufacture scales with its hardness. Hardness is varied by controlling the amount of carbon black milled into the elastomer base. More carbon yields a harder composition. Hard rubber wears more slowly than soft rubber, so a coating of hard rubber on the tread surface of a tire will make it last longer than a soft one- but it also does not grip the road as effectively as soft rubber. What to do?

On motorcycle tires, the solution is to make the tire out of three different rubber compositions. The center "stripe" of the tire surface is made from hard rubber, so when you are blasting down the interstate in a straight line on a warm, sunny day you are rolling on the most wear resistant part of the tire, and you get long life.

Partway up on the sidewall of the tire, where you are rolling during a turn, a softer compound is used to yield more traction so you will not skid on a cold rainy day, and farther up than that the softest compound is used to give you even better grip in a sharper turn while "canyon carving".

Almost all the way up on the sidewall is a ridge that protrudes away from the body of the tire. This is called the "chicken strip" and by thickening the soft rubber into a ridge, that rubber can deform more easily than the soft rubber covering the bulk of the sidewall and furnish even greater grip in the steepest possible turn- beyond which portions of the underside of the motorcycle will begin to scrape the road, which lifts the tire out of contact with the pavement. A low-side crash is the result.

It is called the chicken strip because if you fail to "chicken out" of a steep turn prior to running out of sidewall tread, it will dig into the pavement and save your life at the last moment.

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