Understanding How Engines Work: My Automotive Blog

Your tires are rated for a certain number of miles before replacement. To get as much as you can out of your tires, you need to give them a little attention. When your tires are working optimally, they will give you a long life. Here is what you need to know about how tires wear down and what you can do to make sure they don't need to be replaced before their rated mileage.

A Little Tread Goes a Long Way

Each tire is made of several layers of rubber, fiberglass, and metal. This combination holds the tire's shape as it faces the pressures of the road. Compared to the overall tire, only a small amount of rubber comes into contact with the road. The tread of your tire is made of four components:

• Lug: This is the part of the tire that actually touches the road.
• Void: This is the gap between lugs and is what allows the tire to grip the road surface.
• Groove: This is a channel that crosses the tire and is responsible for moving water out of the way so the lug can hold onto the road without hydroplaning.
• Sipe: This is a smaller channel across the tire to move even more water out of the way. This is usually an optional component cut into the tire at the tire store.

The Safe Tire

Your tire must have enough of the lugs in contact with the road for you to be safe. When the lugs wear down, decreasing the amount of flexibility of your tire, the tire can slip on the road. When worn down to the point where there is no lug left, you have a bald spot on the tire and it will slide over water, oil, and dirt on the road, making stopping and turning dangerous. There are two simple ways to check that your tire has enough tread left for you to be safe:

• Inspect the wear bar: A small rubber strip runs across the tire which shows the minimum amount of tread you need to be safe. As the lugs wear down, they get closer to the top of the wear bar. As long as the lugs are higher than the wear bar, your tire is safe. When they are the same level or the lug is lower than the wear bar, it's time for new tires.
• Checking tread depth with a penny: Place a penny with Lincoln's head upside down in a void next to a lug. As long as Lincoln's head is covered, your tire still has enough tread to be safe.

Factors Affecting Tire Wear

There are several ways that your tires can wear out faster. Inspect your tires when you fill up with gas for any of these signs of abnormal wear.

• Irregular wear: If your front tires are worn down in different places, and especially if there is a zig-zag pattern of wear across the tires, you have a wheel alignment problem. Proper alignment keeps the tires tracking against the road the same way so you have equal amounts of tread on the road from each tire. This is a sign to have a wheel alignment done to minimize the way the tire wears down. It's also a good idea to have the wheel alignment checked when getting new tires installed.
• Center of the tire is worn more than the edges: This tells you that there is too much air in the tire. Over-inflation causes the tire to sit too high on the road so you have less rubber in contact with the surface. Let air out of the tire and check with a tire gauge until the pressure matches the recommended pressure stamped on the outside of the tire.
• Edges are worn more than the center: This tells you there is less air in the tire than what is needed. This makes the tire ride low on the ground and too much tread is touching the surface. This creates more friction and heat in the tire, wearing it out sooner. Add air in the tire until it has the recommended air pressure in it.

For more information, talk to a professional like Medina Muffler Repair Service.