Buying Online Tires

On a serious note now, the importance of replacing worn tires cannot be emphasised enough. If you continue to drive with worn tires, your vehicle cannot grip the road effectively. This can drastically decrease the handling performance of your vehicle, and increase stopping distances in emergencies. These two factors can potentially cause accidents.

Tire Rack recently carried out tests to prove the point. Stopping distances were measured for a BMW travelling at 70mph. The tests were repeated 3 times with different tires: full-tread depth, 2/32-inch and 4/32-inch tread depths.

The results were dramatic:

“The BMW on new tires stopped from 70-0 mph in 195.2 feet in 3.7 seconds. When the testers ran the BMW on tires with tread shaved down to 2/32-inch, it failed to stop at the marker where the new tires stopped and continued at a speed of 55 mph. The BMW finally came to a stop after 378.8 feet, almost double the distance.

With tires shaved to a tread depth of 4/32-inch, the stopping distance of the BMW was 290 feet in 4.7 seconds, about midway between the runs with new tires and those with 2/32-inch tread depth.

The results show how crucial tire tread depth is to a faster stop, which could be the difference between being in an accident and avoiding it.”

Read the full article here.

So… How to we know when to replace tires? Good question! Since 1968, the government has mandated that tires should be replaced when the original tread has worn to a depth of 2/32-inch.

The good news is that you don’t need expensive equipment to measure this! simply push a penny into the tread. If Lincoln’s head is not covered by the tread (as the picture illustrates), go get yourself some new online tires, as the tire is illegal and dangerous.

Remember that 2/32-inch tread depth is just the legal requirement. Obviously the more tread the better, as the Tire Rack experiments have shown. This is especially the case when driving in rain or snow.

Replacing worn tires can be expensive, so it’s important to get as much life out of your tires as possible. Here are three top tips for extending the life of your tires:

1. Keep the tires inflated. Under-inflated tires can reduce the tire life by 15% and will slightly decrease your gas mileage, perhaps by 10%. Inflating tires is perhaps the easiest of all activities, and many stores sell tire gauges for a very small cost. Checking your tire pressure every other time you get gas will reduce tire wear and prevent these issues.

2. Rotate the tires. Changing tire position reduces uneven wear and tear on the tread, thus extending the life of the tires. The recommended rotation cycle is twice a year or every 6,000 miles. Rotate them diagonally - front right to rear left and front left to rear right. However, this pattern can change depending on the drivetrain of the vehicle, and the type of tire. Your vehicle manual will contain detailed rotation information. Keep in mind some tires (especially on sports cars) are directional and are meant to spin only one way. They will have a large arrow on the sidewall to indicate this.

3. Keep the front end aligned. If you notice your car shaking while driving at high speeds (not while braking - shuddering while braking indicates warped rotors), or if your tread is wearing unevenly, then you may need an alignment. This is also key to extending the life of your tires and will keep the tread even for increased safety.

For more information on how to extend the life of your car, take a look at this guide.

So, perhaps you have decided to buy tires online, but remember to act responsibly when disposing of your old tires. Increasingly, people are incorrectly disposing of old tires. This can be harmful to the environment and costly for the government to clean up. Berrien County officials have decided to do something about it, creating a recycling scheme for local residents.

“We get car tires in we get truck tires in, we get oversize tires as well. And they have come from all over the place, residents sometimes farmers will have some in their back field” said Berrien County environmental specialist Jill Adams.

After years and thousands of miles of use, these tires have found the end of the road…or have they?

“All of these tires even the dirty ones they’re able to recycle those they pull out the metal and they can recycle the metal. There are more and more products being made from recycled tires every day” Adams said.

Read the full article here.

so remember… save the environment, recycle!

It’s always important to check you tire pressure, but especially so during hot weather. The combination of low tire pressures and hot roads can potentially lead to tire blowouts, according to experts.

“As the tire pressure drops, the rubber actually bends more, and as it bends more, all of the steel inside the tire is breaking more and builds up more heat, so you have a very much greater likelihood of a blowout,” said Don Lindsey, spokesman for AAA.

Read the full article here.

The AAA (American Automobile Association) recommends checking tire pressures at least once per month, and especially before long journeys.