Flobbery

[crofter]

Shopping for winter tires and I ran into this word. What is "flobbery"?        ~crofter

Quote from article "But winter tires are formulated differently. They have large amounts of silica and a whole host of other materials in smaller amounts that keep things nice and flobbery, even at low temperatures. "

Also, how important is the load rating on tires? Currently my tires are rated 3195 per tire, and the winter tires not as much if rated at all.  ~crofter

related to ~ Tires, your money or your life. FYI Guidelines

 

[Ticklebellly]

What the Challenger's "O" rings needed, I expect. Something about a property that keeps rubber compounds soft and distortable at very low temperatures. I am more interested in the vague description of "nice". WTF does that mean?

 

[crofter]

I have a a feeling that when I enter the tire store, the specifications will get even more vague that this = "nice and flobbery" description we have going.      ~crofter

 

[travelaround]

The Urban Dictionary lists this word... it means "loose and floppy."

I don't think we want flobbery tires!

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Flobbery

 

[Zil]

You will not hear any stupid terms at the tire store. You will hear snow, all weather, highway, off road, racing slick, these are on sale. Go to Tire Rack Dot Com they have a complete description and explanation to make you a smart consumer.

 

[John61CT]

Dupe, see my response in the other thread

 

[wayne49]

Where do you drive that you need specific "winter" tires? Is it a legal requirement to have "winter" tires?

I found that "all weather high performance" tires were ideal (for me) year round tires.
Predictable in low traction situations such as torrential downpours and snow/ice mix.
I was the guy in the lane that no one else was using, slowly passing the nose to tail traffic in the slow lanes.

Now I am consigned to light truck LT tires. My preference is On/Off pavement tires. Boondocking on dirt roads mixed with highway driving.

I had lived in Michigan (and New Jersey) and drove many miles per year in all weather year round. Last pure winter/snow tires I purchased were in 1970 in Minnesota.

Discount Tires on line is also good to check, along with Tire Rack. Used to drive every other week from NKY to western Michigan past the Tire Rack warehouse outside of South Bend.

 

[crofter]

legal requirement to have "winter" tires?
It's here   https://www.tripcheck.com/Pages/Chain-Law

And this is the mark you need on your tires in all the snow zone places. I drive through snow zones pretty often.   ~crofter

 

[Jackpine]

Where do you drive that you need specific "winter" tires? Is it a legal requirement to have "winter" tires?

I found that "all weather high performance" tires were ideal (for me) year round tires.
Predictable in low traction situations such as torrential downpours and snow/ice mix.
I was the guy in the lane that no one else was using, slowly passing the nose to tail traffic in the slow lanes.

Now I am consigned to light truck LT tires. My preference is On/Off pavement tires. Boondocking on dirt roads mixed with highway driving.

I had lived in Michigan (and New Jersey) and drove many miles per year in all weather year round. Last pure winter/snow tires I purchased were in 1970 in Minnesota.

Discount Tires on line is also good to check, along with Tire Rack. Used to drive every other week from NKY to western Michigan past the Tire Rack warehouse outside of South Bend.

Modern winter tires are entirely different than what they used to call winter tires. They use much softer rubber which has much better traction than all season tires on ice.

 

[Smitty716]

When I was in Washington state , I forget what the tire store called it but they would cut grooves across the tread of the tire in the winter if you wanted them too. They said it let the rubber open up and grip more. I watched them do it, it looked brutal a spinning cutting wheel going across the tread cutting those grooves. I don’t know if they still do it but they said it worked. This was back 15 years ago maybe the process has changed .

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

 . . . they would cut grooves across the tread of the tire . . .

It's called siping.  And yes it does increase traction on any surface you need more grip at the cost of faster wear, more noise, and a 'squirmy' feel on dry pavement.

 

[Dingfelder]

There are tiny metal nubs in winter tires here in Oregon, last I checked. They make a noticeable difference in winter driving. But those metal nubs also tear the heck out of pavement. You can see their trails up the asphalt sometimes. It wears out your driveway much more quickly ... then again, does so at the cost of perhaps saving your life. My mother got them after sailing off black ice into a tree.

 

[John61CT]

Called studded tires. Only legal within certain dates, varies by location.

Plenty of snow tires everywhere without them.

Extreme locations may even require chains.

 

[Minivanmotoman]

Imho, this is all just highway flobbery.
Sorry, couldn't resist the chuckle.

 

[crofter]

The old tires finally gave out and due to winter travel in the north, I put some Cooper Discoverer mud and snow 10 plys on the van. They are very sure in the cold and wet so far, but are not as stiff in handling as the previous ones. I did not go with the studs, so I can leave them on longer.    ~crofter

 

[maki2]

flobber means able to to sag and collapse.

It makes some sense as a definition applied to a quality of a tire as they do need to be able to deflate as well as inflate. That is a quality of rubber, it is elastic enough in character to do that stretching and contracting. So yes being flobberly is an important characteristic of tires. When they loose the ability to flobber they are no longer viable tires.

Of course I did have to look this word up as I have don't recall ever reading or hearing it before. Then I had think about exactly why it was being used as term related to for tires as that was not used as a reference in the definitions I saw. I wonder when it came into useage for that? It is an old word, not a new one.

I wonder how many points you could get for it in scrabble?

 

[crofter]

18 points plus any bonus points. Are you playing scrabble?    ~crofter

 

[maki2]

not for quite a few years. An older woman neighbor beat my socks off the last time I played, she was pretty much a pro who played it all the time at the senior centers. She likely knew the word flobber and also flob which means to spit. I learn something new everyday but retaining it is getting slower and less reliable.

 

[SheketEchad]

I'm pretty sure the flobbery tires would be next to the cotton picken' ones my Grampy drove on, and perhaps replaced after one had run over carrion (my grandmother pronounced it k-yarn - it's a name for road kill) and is not to be confused with the stone markers from Scotland called cairns but that's how she'd spell it. My mom actually got into an argument with someone about that, at which point she called me to ask if it was a real word, and I told her if it's in the Urban Dictionary, it is a real word for somebody.

My initial thought was a florist robber, either at a professional business or perhaps someone's old roses being lifted from one's yard.


Words are just wonderful things to play with

 

[jacqueg]

And flobbery is especially wonderful. Never heard of it before 5 minutes ago, and now I can't stop rolling it around and grinning about it.

My first reaction was that it describes a person who is in the aftermath of being flabbergasted. Now how tires get flabbergasted, I'm not sure. Maybe for them, it's a consequence of being made of flubber.