How A Tire Is Made - Part 2 - Sport Compact Car Magazine

Part 2: How A Tire Is Made

Photography by Jay Chen

Let's start with a simple fact - there's no pouring of anything when it comes to making tires. A tire isn't made by pouring rubber into a mold and letting it cure. Just as we discussed in Part 1 of our tire tech series, the modern radial tire is a complex part made of many parts. Each part is laid up in progression as the tire is built from the inside out. Depending on the purpose of the tire, each of these components will differ in design and compounding. In Part 2, we'll take a pictorial look at just how a tire is manufactured and assembled with an unprecedented tour of Continental Tire's Mount Vernon manufacturing facility. Even within the passenger classification, tires are drastically different in construction, parts, materials, and assembly. We'll be looking at just the construction of a passenger tire from an overall perspective.