5 Tire Tips That Save You Money and You Can Do For FREE

For this tire tip you may need to get on the ground to inspect your tires. With a thread depth gauge, check your tread depth. We recommend a minimum tread depth of 2/32nds of an inch. (AKA the penny trick: Place a penny head first into several tread grooves across the tire. If part of Lincoln's head is always covered by the tread, you have more than 2/32 of an inch of tread depth remaining.)

While you're inspecting the tread depth, also look for uneven wear on the tires. A poor wheel alignment can cause the inner shoulder of your front tires to wear prematurely without any other signs there is a problem. For the rear tires, you want to look for excessive wear in the middle of tires. 

What you want to see is even wear on all of your tires.

This tire tip saves you both money at the gas pump and increase the life of your tire. 

You should always keep an eye on your tire’s pressure. Any kind of driving with less than 26 psi on a standard car tire will run the chance of ruining the tires sidewall integrity. No bueno! This could leave you on the side of the road!

Our passenger car tire pressure guidelines:

26-30 psi Highest traction and softest ride. Meant for short distance driving while the vehicle is at its lightest.

30-40 psi Mid-traction and medium ride. This is a good range for the average driver. Most go with a pressure of 35 psi.

40-Max psi Provides minimum traction and stiff ride. Meant for drivers planning on long mileage with heavy loads. Or heavy weighted daily commuters. 

Remember these are only our guidelines. Make sure you always follow the manufacturer’s recommendations for each condition.

Another tire tip that is important for maximizing tire life is rotate your tires. Rotate your vehicle's tires on a regular basis will get you the longest life out of them. The front tires tend to wear the shoulder off faster than the rear tires. While the rear tires tend to wear more in the center of the tread pattern.

We recommend a basic criss-cross rotation pattern. However, some manufacturers may have you go front to back and then criss-cross. Or only front to back. Or left and right. (Boy is that confusing!) That’s why we always have you review your Manufacturer’s handbook on the recommended tire rotation.

*** NOTE! ***

For those who have AWD (All Wheel Drive) or 4x4 (4 Wheel Drive) vehicles it is imperative that you keep the tire’s tread depth even across all tires. If there becomes too much of a tread depth variance, you can cause premature wear to your transfer case. (Don’t worry we know how to save you money and fix this problem!)

You may not realize this, but your tires get old too! They start showing their age with lines (yeah just like some of us!) Because tires are designed to flex, the older they get, the less flexible they become. This can be seen as cracks on your tires. Once you start seeing cracks on your tires, you’re on borrowed time before you could have a catastrophic failure. And you can never predict when it will happen, just that it will happen. 

There are three things that accelerate tire aging; sun (UV) exposure, usage, and time. You can limit sun exposure by putting a UV protective cover over your tires. You many have seen this on Motorhomes. But there is no way of getting away from using your tires. It is more about how you use your tires. 

Making sure that tires are properly inflated for the load. If you don’t have enough air in your tires and you are running a heavy load or just low tire pressure you cause your tires to age faster. 

Lastly, time: Time is your enemy. Tires that have been sitting around for a long time in storage may look good as new. But the rubber used in tires gets dried out and becomes hard and brittle. You may not see cracks yet, but soon after using them you will. And the last thing you want to be is stranded on the side of the road with a blown out tire. (Again no bueno!)

You can easily do this yourself. Find a relatively long stretch of level road with minimal traffic on a windless day. (Yeah I know. I’m asking a lot for being in Wisconsin.) What you want to do is make sure your car is driving straight. Point your car forward and gently hang onto the steering wheel. If the car pulls to one side you may have a tire issue. 

The next step is to jack up the car (safely) and rotate the front tires. Then repeat the test again. If it pulls to the opposite side, then you know you have a tire issue. If not, then you more than likely have an alignment issue that needs to be fixed.

(all the stuff the Lawyers make me say...

I thought I would summarize it for you from the few pages they gave to me.)

Anything you do on your car yourself is your responsibility and at your own risk. 

Thank you :)