Tires are like shoes. Eventually they wear out. After all, tires carry a lot of weight, they’re used in all sorts of weather on all sorts of surfaces, and they’re attached to your vehicle, right? It’s inevitable that sooner or later a vehicle will need new tires. Until then, though, there are ways to maximize their time on the road over the years.
You should rotate your tires every 5,000 to 8,000 miles to help even out the differences of wear on them. Tire rotation involves a mechanic or technician moving tires from one wheel to another, from left to right or back to front or diagonally.
Tires tend to wear unevenly. Front tires do a lot of turning for the vehicle, so they tend to wear on their outside edges thanks to turning so many corners. Keep in mind that the rear tires stay straight all the time, so they don’t wear down in the same way the fronts do. If you didn’t rotate your tires, then over time your front tires’ outside edges would wear down to the point where your vehicle might give you a strange ride. In addition, uneven tires means your vehicle has to use more gas, costing you more money because uneven tires aren’t efficient.
Tires can also wear down due to poor alignments or unbalanced tires, so it’s a smart idea to get your tires rotated and balanced while also opting for a wheel alignment, too. These three things together help make the vehicle run smoother and handle better overall.
Remember the old tire ad that said there’s “a lot riding on your tires?” It’s true. They’re the one part of the vehicle that touches the ground, so tires need to be in their best possible shape and positioning in order to give you a steady, safe and predictable ride.
When’s the last time you had your tires rotated?