Noise and vibration transmitted through the tire and suspension system are strong indicators of overall vehicle ride quality. Often, during the tire design process, target specifications are used to achieve the desired ride performance. To validate the design, subjective evaluations are performed by expert drivers. These evaluations are usually done on a test track and are both quite expensive and time consuming due to the several experimental sets of tires that must be manufactured, installed, and then tested on the target vehicle. In order to evaluate the performance, expert drivers tune themselves to the frequency response of the tire/vehicle combination. Provided the right models exist, this evaluation can also be achieved in a laboratory. The research presented here is a method which utilizes the principles of frequency based substructuring (FBS) to separate or combine frequency response data for the tire and suspension. This method allows for the possibility of combining high fidelity tire models with analytical or experimental suspension data in order to obtain an overall response of the combined system without requiring an experimental setup or comprehensive simulations. Though high fidelity models are not combined with experimental data in the present work, these coupling/decoupling techniques are applied independently to several quarter car models of varying complexity and to experimental data. These models range from a simplified spring-mass model to a generalized 3D model including rotation. Further, decoupling techniques were applied to simulations of a rigid ring tire model, which allows for inclusion of nonlinearities present in the tire subsystem and provides meaningful information for a loaded tire. By reducing the need for time consuming simulations and experiments, this research has the potential to significantly reduce the time and cost associated with tire design for ride performance. In order to validate the process experimentally, a small-scale quarter car test rig was developed. This novel setup was specifically designed for the challenges associated with the testing necessary to apply FBS techniques to the tire and suspension systems. The small-scale quarter car system was then used to validate both the models and the testing processes unique to this application. By validating the coupling/decoupling process for the first time on the tire/vehicle system with experimental data, this research can potentially improve the current process of tire design for ride performance. / Ph. D. / Noise and vibration transmitted through the tire and suspension system of a vehicle strongly influence the comfort of passengers. Often, during the tire design process, target specifications are used to achieve the desired vibrational characteristics. Subjective evaluations are then performed by expert drivers in order to validate the tire design. These evaluations are usually done on a test track and are both quite expensive and time consuming due to the several experimental sets of tires that must be manufactured, installed, then tested on the target vehicle. The research presented here utilizes techniques from the field of Dynamic Substructuring which allow frequency data for the tire and suspension systems to be separated or combined. This method allows for the possibility of combining high fidelity tire models with analytical or experimental suspension data in order to obtain an overall response of the combined system without requiring an experimental setup or comprehensive simulations. Several analytical tire and suspension models were developed for this work and the process of separating/combining the frequency data was performed. Then, a small scale test system was developed and used to establish experimental procedures to collect the data necessary to carry out the Dynamic Substructuring techniques. Finally, the process was validated by repeating the process of separating/combing the frequency properties of the experimental data.