I was wondering, why don't they make shoes with soles out of the same rubber as car tyres? Then they wouldn't wear out so damn quickly. There seem to be a few "eco-friendly" companies doing it, but very expensively, and not very well.
Tyre shoes?
Dec 04, 2014
35 Replies
ISTR they actually do that in some parts of the world. From old tyres anyway.
They may have featured at some point as an ethnic third world fashion item
But from a manufacturers point of view, they'd be cutting their own throats making anything too long lasting.
And anything that does last too long is instead usually made subject to fashion, or constant upgrading etc.
But there's nothing to stop you getting some old tyres and cutting out your own stick-a soles. Or rather stitch-a- soles. The tread should be deep enough that you could drill holes in the furrows through which you could sew them on through the existing soles on your shoes. The threading inside the shoe would be under the insole and so not too uncomfortable.
A car tyre would probably provide enough soles for about ten pairs of shoes, but as you won't be wearing them out so quickly, you might want share your tyre with family and friends or with your neighbours
michael adams
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d.lan...
There are some flipflops on Ebay for =A38 (same price as regular ones of= the same quality) with tyre soles. But the underside looks flimsy - th= ere's threading exposed that looks like it would get damaged. I don't t= hink I'm skilled enough to attach my own sole.
-- =
Heard on a public transportation vehicle while in Orlando: "When you exit this vehicle, please be sure to lower your head and watch= your step." "If you fail to do so, please lower your voice and watch your language."=
Been thinking of trying it for a few years. Bought a pair of Scarpa boots and found that they wore out like dry F1 tyres and grippes like '60s Japanese motorbike tyres (Zen and the art of horizontal motorcycling). If car tyres did the same - 1000 miles/set and slid on every wet corner...!
I wondered about trimming the cleats off the soles of an old pair of boots and glueing on some tyre, but I'm not sure if the glue would withstand the flexing.
I seem to remember something on TV way before the internet days. There was a company doing this very same thing.
ISTR the chap saying that they found tyres from "prestige" cars such as Jaguar etc were the best.
Kenya - "thousand milers".
I'd imagine the steel in a car tyre might be a bit of an issue when making it into soles, as would the curvature! On an allied note, why don't they make tyres in other colours to black? OK the tread area would discolour fast, but it might look very nice. I'm not talking about white wall tyres, which was a passing fad. Another idea might be to make the rubber a different colour when the tread wears down to an illegal state or gets damaged. Brian
You can buy red, green, yellow or blue tyres from at least one Chinese manufacturer.
Google Discolor Tyre.
Yes the dual colour for running out of tread would be good. Although all I do is change them when they burst, fail an MOT, get a puncture and don't look worth repairing, or a roadside check fails one.
And yes, different coloured tyres would be cool, I mean cars aren't all black anymore are they?
Other colours show up the dirt badly, its why white fell out of favour most of a century ago.
NT
I don't have OCD and don't care about dirt.
Poor Arabs in places like Morocco~Egypt have been doing it for years.
I think they would show up dirt well. :-)
Because people with latex allergy might suffer.
How many months do your soles last?
Cheap shoes, 1. Expensive shoes, 3.
A hell of a lot less than the mileage I get out of my car tyres.
People are allergic to all sorts of things, it doesn't stop us making stuff they can't use, like peanuts.
So they get better shoes than us?
That depends where you go. I've had shoes that were indecipherable as shoes.
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