Tire Safety and Understanding Your Car Tires

Four Important Components of Your Car and How to Stay Safe

This blog discusses vehicle tire safety. These four round components are all that separate the rest of your car from the road. They must carry the car or truck’s weight plus the load put into the vehicle. These four patches of rubber must whisk water away to stay in contact with the surface of the road to let you maintain control for stopping and turning. It’s safe to say that your tires are the most important part of your car.

Most of us don’t pay too much attention to our tires. The industry in recent years has advertised to check the air in your tires, which is a start in the right direction. Keep in mind if you have a low tire, then your tire probably leaks air. If your tires go flat or run really low, please have someone unmount them and look to make sure it is repairable. Plugging a tire is not a good idea.

Old tires may look good, but age is a factor in considering when you should replace them. The tires have a date code on them. The rule is to replace it if seven years have passed since the tire’s manufacturing date. The date code is stamped into the tire and may read like “22010.” This code equates to February 20, 2010. Look at the sidewalls of your tires. If you can see cracks or weathering, replacement is the answer.

Sometimes tires can separate and give you a funny feeling, like an oscillation in the steering wheel. This is due to the tire starting to come apart from the inside. Tires can become damaged by curbs, potholes, and debris. Please, if you notice a difference in how your car feels, have a tire shop or garage look at this immediately.

The other tire knowledge to be aware of is load rating, speed rating, and tread type. Most of the public will need a tire pro to help with these choices, and these professionals deal with your vehicle type and how you drive.

You should always find a pro to help you in these matters. This will help you understand why certain tires cost a different amount compared to other types, and access to full information will help you make the right and best choice for your safety.

While you can learn how important your tires are and what a big job your tires do for you, other drivers may not take proper care. Inadequate tires on other vehicles might lead to serious crashes and injuries. Discuss your rights with a car accident attorney immediately if you suffer car accident injuries.

Here are some other good tire care tips:

Check Tire Inflation Levels at Least Once a Month

Tires that suffer from under- or over-inflation compromise your tire performance and cause major issues that may lead to breakdowns at inopportune times. You can ensure proper inflation of your tires by using a tire pressure gauge to manually check your inflation pressure at least once a month or before any long road trip.

Always abide by the recommended pressure of your vehicle manufacturer. Remember that you will need to wait a couple of hours after driving to allow the tires to cool so you can get the most accurate pressure reading. When temperatures are somewhat unpredictable in your area, you will want to check your tires more often because varying temperatures can greatly impact the inflation pressure.

Tire pressure can increase in warm weather and decrease in cool weather – one to two pounds for every ten degrees of temperature change. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) notes that its past studies on tire pressure monitoring showed that about 28 percent of light vehicles on American roadways run with at least one underinflated tire. Poor tire maintenance increases the incidences of blowouts and tread separations.

Rotate Tires Regularly

Check how often your manufacturer recommends tire rotation, but the frequency is usually between 5,000 to 10,000 miles, depending on the vehicle. Tire rotation involves repositioning your vehicle’s tires in specific patterns from front to back or side to side, and it is an important element of tire upkeep and safety.

Rotating tires can be a requirement for maintaining warranty coverage for the tires. The easiest way to remember when to get tires rotated is simply doing it every time you get an oil change.

When you rotate your tires, you will also have a good chance to visually inspect them for any damage and check their air pressure and tread depth. When you routinely rotate your tires, you spread the wear evenly across all four tires, and you can maximize tread life.

Every position on your vehicle will require a different kind of give from each tire, so the tires on the front of a front-wheel drive vehicle will require a greater proportion of torque and friction necessary for turning, accelerating, and braking. This leads to more or less wear on tires, and deep fresh tire treads are more susceptible to uneven wear.

Even tread wear will keep the tread depth on your tires uniform, so you can maintain traction and handle across all four of your tires. This also improves your cornering and braking performance while keeping your vehicle safer overall.

When a vehicle has an all-wheel drive, evenly worn tires will also lower the stresses on your drivetrain, thus reducing the wear on expensive drive components.

Invest in Wheel Alignment

When your suspension parts wear or when your suspension takes a hit, such as hitting a pothole, a curb, or anything else in a minor accident, it can also cause your vehicle’s alignment to become uneven. You need to ensure that your wheels and tires are properly aligned because when they are not, you may damage your tires and affect your vehicle’s handling.

When your suspension is out of alignment, there will be uneven pressure on the tires that can cause the car to have to work harder on the tires than it should need to. This occurs because there is more resistance between the tire and the road surface.

Such resistance may cause tires to wear unevenly, with the tires ultimately becoming worn on one side. Driving on uneven tires is dangerous and can force you to purchase tires sooner than you need to with a proper alignment.

If tires are wearing unevenly, you can start to feel a vibration in the steering wheel. The tires can also produce more road noise when treads are uneven.

Your car also has to work harder when tires wear unevenly, and the harder the car has to work, the more fuel it will burn. If your tires come out of alignment and wear unevenly, you will have to pay more for gas.

Check the Tire Tread Depth

Tire treads allow your vehicle to grip the road and maintain control. When the tire’s grooves wear down, the vehicle does not grip the road effectively.

There are multiple ways you can measure your tread depth. One common test is the penny test.

Simply insert a penny into your tire’s tread groove with Abraham Lincoln’s head upside down and facing you. If you can see all of Lincoln’s head, then your tire tread depth is less than 2/32 inch, and you must replace your tires.

Similarly, the quarter test is another coin test to measure tread depth. You insert a quarter into your tread groove again, and if the tread touches George Washington’s head, you have at least 4/32 inches of tread remaining, but replace a tire whose tread does not reach the head.

You can also use a tire tread wear indicator on your tires to check tire treads. When trades wear down to tread wear indicators less than an inch (2/32 of an inch) from the bottom of the tread groove, replace the tire.

Another way of measuring a tire’s tread depth is to use a tire tread depth gauge, which you can purchase at any store that sells vehicle parts. Most tread depth gauges will measure in 32nds of an inch, or 25-26 millimeters.

Certain gauges have a needle-like design with a portion expanding to measure the tread depth. Since tires wear unevenly, you will want to take measurements in different locations around the tire.

Try to Avoid Mixing and Matching Your Tires

While it might be more convenient or cost-effective to only replace one or two tires at a time, replace all four at once. Tires that do not match only lead to rapid and uneven tread wear or may even cause possible mechanical issues.

Contact a Car Accident Lawyer after a Tire-Related Crash

If you are in a collision because another driver had a damaged, worn, or underinflated tire, you will face a complex insurance process. Tire cases require technical evidence of tire quality, appropriateness, and maintenance.

You want a skilled car accident attorney handling your case – especially one with knowledge of tires and how they can lead to injuries.