Hankook Premiers Ventus Prime3 in European Market

Hankook has premiered its new Ventus Prime3 in the European market. The tire is positioned as a premium comfort tire for high-end models with its blend of comfort, performance, safety and environment friendliness. The notable characteristics of the tire include improved wet and dry braking performance, and the tire is available in 53 dimensions ranging from 15 to 18 inches.

The main breakthrough by the Hankook engineering team was the improvement made in the tire’s wet braking performance. The use of a new high grip silica compound and a new mixing technology has resulted in better dispersion of polymers and fillers within the tread compound, raising the wet braking performance by 8 % and lowering the tire’s rolling resistance. Another factor that contributes to the tire’s performance in wet conditions is a wide 4 channel groove tread pattern that causes rapid drainage thus allowing the driver better control and minimizing the risk of hydroplaning. Specific inpidual lateral groove depths have been implemented for better trade-off effects between wet and dry performances making the Ventus Prime3 tire perform equally well in both scenarios.

When it comes to dry performance, an optimized asymmetric tread design has been used to increase the tire’s contact patch by 10%. Along with higher tread stiffness in both the radial and lateral directions, a strong outer shoulder, a design to make the outer tread ribs harder, the dry handling is also significantly better. Dry braking has increased by 3%, and the tire offers better traction due to the employment of chamfered grooves around the tread to widen the contact patch in the braking process.

Newly developed functionalized polymers with a high molecular weight applied to the tread compound of the Hankook Ventus Prime³ results in a 9% improved wear resistance. The tyre comes equipped with state of the art light weight durable rayon carcass, a wide steel belt layer package covered by a jointless full cover reinforcement belt and a high stiffness bead filler contributing further to better handling, more precise steering responses and great controllability, even at high speeds.

External noise is kept to a minimum with an optimized pitch design, a better lateral groove angle and anti-air resistance sidewall adding to the comfort the tire provides. A new groove technology that has been developed by Hankook’s development engineers has been used to considerably reduce pattern noise on both new and used Ventus Prime³ tires.

Just like all products that have been recently made by Hankook’s new Ventus Prime3 tire comes with a Visual Alignment Indicator (VAI) system on the shoulders that serves as a guide for drivers to check their wheel alignment.