Time to check your tires

With winter approaching and driving conditions changing, now is a good time to check for obvious signs of tire wear…

We ran this Car Care Tip in early 2010, but wanted to reprint it for this edition.

The Car Care Council and Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire have provided this helpful diagram showing the four most obvious signs of tire wear.

Irregular wear of a tire, whether it is shoulder wear or center wear can present serious problems. These tires need to be inspected by a trained mechanic for two reasons. First, you need to determine if the tires should be replaced. When a tire shows this kind of wear, they are not offering the kind of traction, ride and safety on the road.

At the same time, it is critical that you discover what is causing the irregular wear, whether alignment, inflation or something else is to blame. Unless the problem is fixed, the life of your new tires will be significantly shortened.

Be sure to check your tread bars. The tread bars on a tire are specifically designed to let you know when it is time to change your tires due to normal tread wear. When these bars become visible on the tire, the tire should be replaced.

You can also gauge this by placing a penny upside-down in the tread. If you can see the top of Lincoln’s head, the tread is worn too far.

Article courtesy of the Car Care Council.