An improved friction model was proposed with consideration of the effect of the sliding speed, the contact pressure and the temperature, and it was implemented into a user subroutine of a commercial FEM code, ABAQUS/Explicit. Then, a smooth tire was simulated for free rolling, driving, braking and cornering situations using the improved friction model and the Coulomb friction model, and the effect of the friction models on the slip, the frictional energy distribution and the cornering force and moment was analyzed. For the free rolling, the driving and the braking situations, the improved friction model and the Coulomb friction model resulted in similar profiles of the slip and the frictional energy distributions although the magnitudes were different. The slips obtained from the simulations were in a good correlation with experimental data. For the cornering situation, the Coulomb friction model with the coefficient of friction of 1 or 2 resulted in lower or higher cornering forces and moments than experimental data. In addition, in contrast to experimental data it did not result in a maximum cornering force and a decrease of the cornering moment for the increase of the speed. However, the improved friction model resulted in similar cornering forces and moments to experimental data, and it resulted in a maximum cornering force and a decrease of the cornering moment for the increase of the speed, showing a good correlation with experimental data.