How can you increase the life of your tires?

If your tires are an essential part of your car’s safety, replacing them is always an investment. Fortunately, there are a number of strategies you can adopt to maximize their lifespan.

Drive carefully

The basic rule: avoid damaging your tires. Avoid high speeds, hard braking and cornering too quickly. They all contribute to premature tire wear. Drive carefully over obstacles: high road edges and potholes, if crossed too abruptly, will deform your tires and eventually cause them to burst. Try to choose a right angle and drive slowly over kerbs and road irregularities. Caution: the consequences are not always visible. Over time, this can lead to worsening damage and, possibly, air leakage. Check your tires regularly for cracks, cuts, dents and foreign objects.

This video can explain it more:

Check tire pressure regularly

Correct inflation is the best guarantee of long tire life. Studies carried out by Touring have shown that almost half of all motorists drive on under-inflated tires. Here are a few tips to help you get the job done: Always check the pressure when your tires are cold. If your tires are warm, add 0.3 bar to the recommended pressure. The recommended pressure is indicated on the side of the driver’s door or on the fuel filler flap. If not, you’ll find this information in your car’s manual. Check the pressure of the spare tire too, to avoid further frustration in the event of a puncture!

Change and rotate your tires

Depending on the type of driving, usage, etc., tires show wear due to friction after a certain number of kilometers. To ensure that this wear is the same everywhere, you can swap front tires with rear tires. Be careful to respect the direction of travel! Ideally, you should change all four tires at the same time, so that the vehicle’s handling is not affected.

 If you change them in pairs, it’s essential to put the new tires on the rear, never the front. Finally, never mix summer/winter/4-season tires: their characteristics are so different that your safety depends on it. They should always be fitted in sets of 4.

Have your wheels balanced

Problems of unbalance always occur where parts rotate around an axis. Poor balancing means uneven weight distribution around the wheel’s axis of rotation. This can create vibrations in the wheels and contribute to premature tire wear. If your front wheels are out of balance, you’ll feel a vibration in the steering wheel. The best remedy? Have your tires changed by an expert, who will check the wheel balance at the same time. And if you’re changing your tires yourself, you should always have them balanced by a specialist.