How Do I Know if I Need New Tires ? ( 01:13 )
How can you tell if you need new tires ? Check your tread depth. As a tire wears, its ability to perform is reduced. particularly on wet roads in the jump. The authoritative number is 4/32 ”. We ’ ll prove you how to measure your tires to see if they ’ re fix for the roads … or retirement .
Reading: How Do I Know If I Need New Tires?
While it is simple to place a Lincoln penny in the tread groove of a worn tire and use Abe’s likeness as a guide, we don’t think Honest Abe knows what’s best for today’s drivers.
The Lincoln penny tread depth examination has been touted for years to be a desirable method acting of determining when it ‘s time to get new tires. It ‘s based on the precede you ‘re driving on legal tread depths anytime the exceed of Lincoln ‘s head is obscured by the tread and that a tire ‘s ability to grip the road is n’t greatly reduced in adverse conditions ( rain, slush and snow ) until the tread wears to about 2/32 ” of remaining depth. It then maintains you ‘re ready for raw tires at 2/32 ” and can see the penny above Lincoln ‘s steer. ( See Photo # 1 ) Is it american samoa elementary as that ? No. Read on .
A driver ‘s ability to control their vehicle depends on the grip between their tires and the road. Tires do n’t require tread designs or even much tread depth to deliver traction on dry roads. A virtual model of this is the racing slicks used on stock cars and open-wheel racers that provide grip at over 200 miles per hour. however, tires do require tread designs to generate traction on wet, bathetic and snow-clad roads. Liquids ca n’t be compressed and necessitate clock and energy to move them out of the room as our tires drive through them. Those same race slicks would lose grip at amazingly dense speeds anytime something prevented them from maintaining contact with the road .
thus a pace purpose is necessity to direct water and splash from between the run down and the road, a well as supply edges that sting into snow. But that ‘s lone half the equation ; because we ‘ve seen that tread depth besides contributes to how well the design does its job .
The air our tires encounter at highway speeds can easily be compressed and moved out of the way with relative ease. however the lapp is n’t true of liquids. When water system collects on the road surface during rainstorms, the water system depth, vehicle speed and fomite weight, adenine well as the tires ‘ tread designs and tread depths jointly determine when and if the tires will be forced to hydroplane and how cursorily they can stop a vehicle.
“ Tire Rack ‘s advice is that if rain and moisture roads are a concern, you should consider replacing your tires when they reach approximately 4/32 ” of remaining pace depth. ”
A typical passenger car tire has about twenty square inches of sum footprint surface and begins with about 1/3 ” of tread depth. While the majority of the footprint airfoil is made up of the rubber that grips the road, the remainder is the invalidate of the grooves that make up the tread design. ( See Photo # 2 )
obviously the tread will wear off over the life of the bore and the volume of its pace grooves will be reduced. While this occurs thus slowly that it may not be noticed daily, ultimately there will be a time when the driver will notice the car faux pas in the coke, hydrofoil in the rain or plainly not stop in angstrom brusque a distance on wet roads .
In club to confirm how much moisture grip worn tires sacrifice, members of the Tire Rack team measured the stopping distances from 70 miles per hour ( the typical rush limit of U.S. Interstate highways ) with vehicles equipped with sets of newly tires and compared them to tires with about 4/32 ” ( 3mm ) of remaining step depth, followed by sets with the legal minimum of 2/32 ” ( 1.6mm ) depth. The differences surprised us ! Vehicles equipped with the 2/32 ” minimal tire tread depth took approximately 100 more feet to stop and were still traveling at about 45 miles per hour at the same distance the vehicles equipped with the 4/32 ” deep tires had already come to a complete catch !
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The Tire Rack ‘s advice is that if rain and wet roads are a concern, you should consider replacing your tires when they reach approximately 4/32 ” of remaining tread depth. Since water ca n’t be compressed, you need enough tread depth to allow the rain to escape through the run down ‘s grooves. If the water ca n’t escape fast adequate, your vehicle ‘s tires will be forced to hydroplane ( float ) on top of the water system, losing grip and increasing stopping distances .
additionally, if snow-clad roads are a concern, you should consider replacing your tires when they reach approximately 5/32 ” of remaining tread depth to maintain good mobility. You need more tread depth in snow because your tires need to compress the snow in their grooves and release it as they roll. If there is n’t sufficient tread depth, the “ bites ” of bamboozle your tires can take on each rotation will be reduced to “ nibbles, ” and your vehicle ‘s traction and mobility will be sacrificed .
While replacing your tires before they are legally worn out may not appear the most economic drill, it is far less expensive than repairing your car if it ca n’t stop in an emergency site in less distance than the fomite ahead of you !
