If you were ask ask a survivalist, or just watch Man vs Wild, you’d come to find that one of the most important things to maintain in a survival situation is your feet. Well, driving your car to the grocery store may not feel like a life or death situation, but your tires are like the feet of your car. If you don’t maintain them properly, you can find yourself in a sticky spot pretty quickly.
After proper inflation, the next thing you want to make sure to monitor is the tread on your tires. a common trick to determine how much life is left in your tread is to take a penny and insert it in to the tread with Abe turned upside down. If you can still see the top of his head above the tread, it’s a good indicator that it’s time to replace the tire.
Just being cognizant of a few things should help you avoid any catastrophic failures at inopportune times. For just a couple of bucks you can buy a tire pressure gauge that should give you a fairly good idea of when your tires could use some air. Tires that are inflated to the proper PSI provide better fuel efficiency and last longer, so it’s worth it to keep an eye out for any under-inflated wheels.
Replacing old, worn out tires is a good idea, but to get the most life out of them, try rotating them every 8-10 thousand miles. This will ensure even wear, and you won’t end up replacing a whole set of tires just because one has worn all the way down before the others.