Tires are key to road safety; good gas mileage
By Kevin McClintock Specialty Publications

Five minutes. Just five minutes each month is the amount of time recommended by the Rubber Manufacturers Association to check your car or truck’s tires, including the spare bolted down in back.

Just five short minutes to check air pressure, tread, alignment and if it’s time for a rotation.

We tend to take tires for granted. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to get from Point A to Point B. They also cushion the ride inside on long trips. Best of all, properly-inflated tires can save you where it really counts — your wallet, at least when it comes to fuel efficiency.

“Your tires were designed to give you many thousands of miles of safe and reliable service, but they are not immune to problems,” Donald B. Shea said, who serves as RMA president. “They can’t do their job properly if they are worn out, damaged or neglected.”

Special attention should be paid to the tread on your tires. The grainy, rainy days marking the start of the late summer or early autumn months creates driving risks. Stopping on wet roads can take up to four times the normal distance.

If your tread is worn, tires will tend to hydroplane — skim over the surface of the road with little or no traction. So check your tread.

“Take good care of your tires, and they will take good care of you,” Shea said in a RMA release.

Insert Abe’s head into the tread in a couple of spots on each tire. If you can see the entire top of his head, your tread is less that one-sixteenth of an inch deep — below the level where you can count on it in slippery conditions. It should be replaced.

While you’re administering the Abe test to your tires, take a good look at them. Any signs of uneven tread wear? That could mean a number of different problems — underinflation, tires out of balance, or wheels out of alignment. If you can tell your tread is wearing unevenly on some of your tires, ask your dealer to take a look. There, mechanics can correct problems before they cause trouble.

“If you don’t rotate your tires every 6,000 miles or so, you should get into the habit,” Shea said. The forces exerted on tires differ, depending on the tire’s position on the car, and wear patterns may differ. Front wheels work harder because they do the turning and most of the braking. And rear wheels can be unevenly loaded.

And as always — at least once a month for 5 minutes — check tire air pressure with an accurate tire gauge. You can’t tell if a tire needs air just by looking. It could be down 6-to- 10 pounds and still look fine. The most serious consequence of riding on an underinflated tire is heat buildup caused by the increased flexing of a tire that isn’t as firm as it should be.

Driving on underinflated or overloaded tires at high speeds over long distances — for instance, driving on the highway — can lead to tire failure.