How to Maintain Your Tires

Tires are a very crucial piece to a vehicle and truthfully you aren’t going anywhere if they aren’t working properly! So why is it that so many people neglect simple maintenance steps that could drastically increase the performance and lifespan of their tires? You would think that with such a large percentage of accidents being caused by tire related issues that owners would take care of their tires. By following a few simple steps you can ensure that you are safe when you are driving, and at the same time increase the performance of your car and the lifespan of your tires.

Balancing

Balancing is an important aspect of your tires and you need to ensure that your car is properly balanced to ensure that you are safe when you are out on the road. You should always make sure that your tires are balanced after you have changed one or if they have been taken off the car so that other repairs could be done on the car. You can usually tell if you car is out of balance by a change in vibrations, and even if you notice unusually wear on the tires. This can be caused by one tire holding too much of the weight of the car.

Alignment

Alignment is another essential aspect of proper tire use and directly affects the safety of driving the car. The major benefit from driving a car that is aligned is increased steering ability, and the fact that the tires will be evenly worn out which will help prevent tire blowouts. You can usually tell if you car isn’t properly aligned by the wear on the tires, decrease in your cars performance ability, and a reduction in your ability to steer.

Other Steps

The other major things you need to take care of to ensure that your tires are properly maintained are tire rotation and inflation. Proper tire inflation is key to the performance of your car and can affect how many miles to the gallon that your car produces. You can find the proper level of inflation for your tires by checking your owner’s manual but generally speaking you want your tires to be in the twenty four to twenty eight psi range. This is important information to have because over inflation of the tire can damage your tire almost as much as under inflation.

In order to obtain the most even tread wear on your car’s tires you want to ensure that you have them rotated to compensate for the uneven distribution of weight that is produced by a car. You should usually have your tires rotated seven to eight thousands miles for optimal use.