Where Should I Buy New Tires
If you have a membership to Costco or Sam’s Club, start your hunt for new tires there, Reiss says. If not, sites like Tire Rack and TireScanner are good resources for price comparing and shopping around.
Don’t forget about dealerships. “Often dealerships will promote a ‘buy three, get one free’ offer on a new set of tires,” she says.
And, Reiss adds, always be on the lookout for a sale at your local tire shop or a car dealership: “Sales tend to be seasonal. Spring, when people tend to their cars after winter driving, fall when drivers are looking at their winter car needs, and the end of the year are when most retailers have sales.”
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How Old Are Your Tires
The U.S. Department of Transportation requires that all tires must list the month and year the tires were produced on the sidewall. On tires made in 2000 or newer, this can be found in the last four digits of the Tire Identification Number. Of those four digits, the first two convey the month, and the last two convey the year. For example, a tire that reads DOT U2LL LMLR 3209 means it was made in the 32nd week of 2009. Before 2000, three digits were used, with the first two digits translating to the month and the last digit marking the year.
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Do All Four Tires Need To Be The Same Brand
No. But some things are important to do when getting new tires.
- The tire size should be the same. If you have 245/50-18 tires, replace them with the same size.
- Speed rating: Replace your tire with the same speed rating as the other tires. If your tire is a W speed-rated tire approved for speeds up to 168 miles per hour, you should never replace it with a tire of a lower speed rating. Tire construction and handling capabilities need to be the same for proper control of your vehicle.
- Tread type: Its recommended that you dont mix different treads on the same axle. If you have a certain type of Bridgestone tire on the front tires, the replacement tire should be the same. Also, depending on the wear of the other tire, you may need to replace both.
Although its easier to replace all four tires, its okay to replace your tires in pairs. It saves money and still makes the vehicle safer.
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Check The Date On The Side
All modern tires come stamped with their production date from the manufacturer. This allows you to keep track of their age. Check the sidewall of your tires and look at the date printed on each one.
According to the experts at RedLine TireShop, the rubber will stay in good shape for as many as 10 years with routine maintenance. If the tires are much older than that, its time to think about replacing tires in a month or two.
When To Replace Your Tires
How to determine whether the tires on your car, SUV, or truck need to be replacedbefore they fail
Youre driving at 65 mph with the kids in the back and the rain pouring down when a deer dashes across the highway. You nail the brakes and . . . what happens next may hinge on how worn your tires are. And now isnt the time to realize you need new ones.
Too many drivers dont think about their tires until they have to swerve or brake suddenly, or they have a flatoften with serious consequences. About 9 percent of vehicle crashes are tire-related, according to estimates from a study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But many could be prevented just with proper tire maintenance.
So its important to inspect your tires every month for wear. To gauge tread depth, all you need is a quarter. Put George Washingtons head into one of the big grooves. If the top of his head is flush with the tread, you have about 432 inch of tread left, meaning you have some grip remaining for rainy or snowy conditions. Thats the time when you should start shopping for new tires. If you can see space above Washingtons head, you may need to replace your tires immediately.
There are lots of good tire choices, but the right one depends on your car, where you live, and your driving needs and style.
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A Few Milestones And Tips:
1- Keep five years in mind
After five years or more in use, your tyres should be thoroughly inspected at least once per year by a professional.
2- Ten years is a maximum
If the tyres haven’t been replaced 10 years after their date of manufacture, as a precaution, Michelin recommends replacing them with new tyres. Even if they appear to be in a usable condition and have not been worn down to the tread wear indicator. This applies to spare tyres as well.
3- Proper care extends a tyres lifespan
If you take good care of your tyre’s air pressure, tread wear, alignment and so on, you can increase their longevity.
For original equipment: follow the vehicle manufacturers tyre replacement recommendations.
How to check the manufacturing date
Look for the DOT code on your sidewall.
- Potholes, obstacles, kerbs, sharp objects, speed bumps
Climate:
- Oil, grease and other chemicals
- Strong sunlight and ozone
car edito 6 3 tip4 what damages tires help and advice
Find The Right Tires With Tire Rack
Listen, we know how hard it can be to pick the right tire. Between the word-jumble that are tire specifications, as well as the tire manufacturer’s names for tires that never just say what they are, it can be a pain and you might end up with the wrong shoes for your ride. That’s why we’ve partnered up with our friends at Tire Rack. They’ll take the headache out of tire shopping. All you have to do is .
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How Often Should I Change My Tyres
Your tyres need changing more regularly than you may think. As the only part of your car to touch the ground, they experience a lot of wear and tear.
Changing your tyres on a regular basis keeps your car in good working order. If your tyres are not performing well, your car will have to work harder and will use more fuel in the process. In the long term, this means that your car could be more expensive to run. Even more importantly, poorly performing tyres make your car less safe on the roads.
Knowing when to change your tyres comes down to three factors: the tread, the pressure and any damage. If even just one of these factors is unsatisfactory, your tyres need to be changed.
Things You Can Do To Increase Tire Lifespan
To get the most out of your tires, you need to maintain them properly.
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Which Automobile You Own
It might appear insane, yet what sort of car, truck or SUV you drive may mean the difference in replacing 1 tire vs. replacing all four. Let’s say you have a bald tire, and you’ve found the exact brand-new tire to replace it. If the tires on your car, truck, or SUV are new, you can probably get away with changing simply one tire. However, if your tires are significantly older than the new tire will certainly be a different size than the remainder of the tires. This is an issue due to the fact that the smaller tires will have to work harder to complete the very same distance as the larger tire. Mismatched tires can create additional wear and tear on components, specifically on AWD cars. If there are tires on one axle are spinning faster than the others, your automobile’s computer may think those tires are losing traction and could add power inaccurately. This might trick your automobile into thinking it’s in slippery condition and keep it in a mode not designed for full time driving.
Determining The Age Of Your Tires
How often you should replace your tires depends on your driving the more you drive, the faster youll wear down the tread and other factors, such as weather and road conditions. But even if your tires have plenty of tread left, experts recommend that you replace tires that are 6 years old or older, says Petersen.
The Department of Transportation code on a car’s tire shows the week and year it was manufactured.
To see how old your tires are, check the four-digit Department of Transportation code on your tire wall to find out when the tire was manufactured. The first two numbers stand for the week in the year it was made, and the other two are for the year. For example, if your tire has 1109 printed on it, then it was manufactured in the 11th week of 2009.
Finding the date code can be a little tricky. Its usually preceded by the initials DOT. There are other numbers and letters after DOT look for a set of four digits ending with two numbers that are recognizable as a year in the past.
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Things To Remember When Youre Replacing A Tire
If one or more of your tires needs to be replaced, there are three more factors to consider:
- Whether to replace other tires at the same time
- Whether to get an alignment
- How to drive with your new tire
In general, its advisable to replace tires in pairs unless the other tire is fairly new and the replacement is because of unusual damage. Its also a very bad idea to have mismatched tires from side to side, as the different handling characteristics can be dangerous in an emergency.
- Tip: If youre replacing two tires and your car uses the same size tire on the front and the rear then its best to put the new tires in the front of a front wheel drive car and in the rear of a rear wheel drive car.
Its best to have your wheels aligned when you replace tires, unless:
- Its been less than two years since your last alignment
- Your old tires didnt show any unusual wear patterns
- You havent been in any accidents or hit any bumps very hard since your last alignment
-
Youre not changing anything else
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Warning: If you get one or more tires replaced please remember that new tires are sometimes coated with substances that make them slick for a little while drive particularly carefully for the first 50 or 100 miles.
How Do I Know If My Caris Out Of Alignment
Signs of a vehicle out of alignment include:
- Uneven wear across the contactpatch/width of the tire. The inside of the tires is wearing faster. Note that the uneven wear can be limited to just a couple tires, or even just one.
- Pulsing feedback and shaking ofthe steering wheel, or through the chassis . This feedback occurs regardless of road conditions and road surface imperfections.
- Steering wheel is off center. When driving straight, the 12 o’clock position of your steering wheel is to the left or right of center.
- Pulling left or right. Without steering correction as in, with your hands off of the steering wheel the vehicle pulls to the left or right.
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Do Tires Get Harder With Age
Yes, absolutely. The rubber in a tire gets hard as it ages, just as the rubber in other common materials does. You can even poke at tire treads with your fingernail and feel the difference between an old and new tire of the same brand and model. The harder rubber doesnt grip the road nearly as well.
Are There Tricks To Make My Tires Last Longer
There are some ways to ensure your tires last as long as possible, such as keeping them inflated to the proper pressure. You can find that number on your driver’s side door pillar, Montoya says.
Rotating your tires also extends their life, he says. “Tires are going to wear based on how you drive, and each one is going to wear in its own pattern, so rotating them makes sure that they are wearing evenly.”
Between five and six years is a good point where you need to start looking at replacing tires.Ronald Montoyasenior consumer advice editor at Edmunds
You should rotate your tires every 5,000 miles. The average person drives almost 13,500 miles per year, according to the Federal Highway Administration, so rotating them about twice a year should be adequate.
A good rule of thumb is to just get a tire rotation done when you bring your car to a mechanic to get the oil changed, Montoya says. It should cost roughly $100, he adds, but there are ways to save.
“Rotating tires should be free if you go to the shop that installed your tires,” Reiss says. “If that isn’t an option, rotating and balancing tires can cost from $25 to $100 depending on the shop and their rate for labor. But ask for a discount or for a free service. Many will do this in order to get your next tire purchase.”
Rotating tires should be free if you go to the shop that installed your tires.Scotty ReissA Girls Guide to Cars
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Other Helpful Driving Tips
Visit our How To section where you will find a series of guides sowing you perform essential basic maintenance tasks on your car. Simply click on one of the links below to find out more. We have also shared some useful hints and tips on how to deal with different driving conditions, so you can become a safer and more confident driver. These can be found on our page.
Whatever your question or feedback we are here to help. So please feel free to contact us
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How Often Should You Rotate Car Tires
Follow these tips to make your tires last longer and your car drive better.
For everything you need to know about buying and maintaining tires, click here.
Quick, name the top two safety features on your car, truck, or SUV. Chances are good that tires didn’t factor high among the answers. But tires are your vehicle’s sole connection to the road. You need to know one of the simplest things you can do to take care of them, so they can take care of you: periodic tire rotation.
“Most drivers don’t pay attention to their tires,” says Matt Edmonds, executive vice president at the Tire Rack, the largest online marketplace for tire sales in the United States. While tires are his business, Edmonds is under no illusion that tire rotation, a vitally important safety check, is going to get pulses racing.
That’s because car tires can seem, well, kind of boring. Most drivers tend not to notice them unless they get a flat. Tires don’t have the panache of self-driving technology, the excitement of rubber-burning horsepower, or the feel-good factor of automated emergency braking and blind-spot-monitoring systems.
Too bad, because tire rotation is important when it comes to maintaining the performance and safety of your vehicle. Your tires are, quite literally, where the rubber meets the road, as your tires’ contact patches with the pavement are in use during every single drive, in all weather conditions. Well-cared-for tires keep you safe.
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How Often Should I Check My Tyre Pressure
You should check the pressure of your tyres once a month, at least, and before long journeys.
Keeping your tyres at the correct pressure helps them to last longer because the tread will wear evenly. Too little pressure and the tyres will wear more on the outside edges, too much and they will wear heavily on the middle.
The correct pressure for your tyres can be found on the inside of the drivers door pillar or in the manual. Usually, there will be two figures shown, one for when the car is loaded and one for when it is not, often known as the normal driving condition.
You can check the pressure of your tyres at most petrol stations. Start by removing the valve stem cap on the wheel, and then place the pressure gauge onto the valve stem tightly. There should be no hissing noise when the gauge is in place. The PSI reading will show up on the display. If your tyres are under or over inflated, follow the instructions on the air pump to get the pressure to the correct level.
How Much Does It Cost To Buy New Tires
This depends on what type of tire, the size of the tire, and the brand. Four 15-inch Sumitomo HTR P02 all-season tires for a 1996 Saturn SC2 cost roughly $275, but four 20-inch Bridgestone Potenza S007 summer tires will set you back roughly $1,800. Expect to spend at least a few hundred dollars at a minimum.
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