Patent ID: 7891392

Claim:
A pneumatic tire including a tread portion having an outer ground contact edge and an inner ground contact edge to be located on the outside and inside, respectively, of a vehicle when the tire is fitted to a vehicle, said tread portion provided with a pair of crown circumferential grooves which extend continuously and straightly in the tire circumferential direction and which are disposed one on each side of the tire equator to provide a center land portion between them, wherein said pair of crown circumferential grooves are an inner crown circumferential groove which lies on the inner ground contact edge side of the tire equator and an outer crown circumferential groove which is on the outer ground contact edge side of the tire equator; an outer shoulder circumferential groove extending continuously in the tire circumferential direction and located between said outer crown circumferential groove and the outer ground contact edge, thereby forming an outer middle land portion between the outer shoulder circumferential groove and said outer crown circumferential groove; an inner shoulder circumferential groove extending continuously in the tire circumferential direction and located between said inner crown circumferential groove and the inner ground contact edge, thereby forming an inner middle land portion between the inner shoulder circumferential groove and said inner crown circumferential groove; and a plurality of curved oblique grooves provided in said center land portion at intervals in the tire circumferential direction, wherein each said curved oblique groove extends obliquely from said inner crown circumferential groove toward said outer crown circumferential groove over the tire equator and turns, without reaching said outer crown circumferential groove, toward said inner crown circumferential groove and extends obliquely intersecting one of the curved oblique grooves to define an intersecting point at a location substantially on the tire equator and terminates at a location between the inner crown circumferential groove and the tire equator in said center land portion, whereby each of the curved oblique grooves is composed of: an outer component which lies on the outer ground contact edge side of the tire equator, a first inner component which lies on the inner ground contact edge side of the tire equator and located on one side of the outer component in the tire circumferential direction, and a second inner component which lies on the inner ground contact edge side of the tire equator and located on the other side of the outer component in the tire circumferential direction, and said outer and inner middle land portions each having circumferentially extending edges provided with chamfers such that the chamfers of the outer middle land portion are larger in the axial width than the chamfers of the inner middle land portion.