Extend the Life of Your Tires and Keep Your Car on the Road with a Wheel Alignment

Tires are expensive. There is no way around it. Even basic tires on a car to get around the neighborhood can cost $200 apiece. There are cheaper tires, and there are more expensive tires. Even if you go with the cheaper brands, to change out all four tires can be expensive. Since getting tires is a significant expense, you want to make sure that your wheels are correctly aligned. Misaligned wheels can cause tires to wear down unevenly and shorten the life of the tires. We talk about the importance of wheel alignments on our Tire Service page. If your wheels are not aligned, then additional friction between the tire and road will cause the tires to wear down quickly. Even worse, they will wear down unevenly, which compounds the problem of misaligned wheels. Left unchecked, the investment you made in new tires will have been a waste, and you will have to spend that money all over again.

Keep your tires matched.

Best case scenario is that you have four identical tires on your car. If you can’t have four matching tires, then at least have the two front tires and the two rear tires match. Tires are not identical. There are significant differences in tires from the geometry of the tire to the thickness, tread, and quality of the rubber used. All these differences mean that the mismatched tires are handling the road differently from each other, and this difference, no matter how slight, will also cause your tires to wear down prematurely. Understanding that it is expensive to change all four tires at once, at a minimum, you should change out two tires at the same time, so at least you have one matching pair. Even with one pair of matched tires, you will notice a significant improvement in how your car feels and how it handles the road. You can tell from the feel of the car that you are more stable, and your new matched tires are holding you to the road better than the old mismatched ones.

Not all Tires are Made the Same

This stability comes in very handy when it is raining when old worn tires can lead to loss of control of the car, causing an accident. Tires have not only different sizes but also different technology. People tend not to think about the technological advancements of tires. Most people just see it as a rubber ring filled with air. That cannot be further from the truth. Not anymore. Rubber tires would not even be available if it were not for a man named Charles Goodyear. Yes, THAT Goodyear. He invented the process of rubber vulcanization, which transformed rubber from a soft material that couldn’t hold its shape, to a material that had strength and substance and was able to hold the weight of a carriage and the abuse that tires took on uneven roads.

A Brief History of Tires

Even before cars were invented, tires used on carriages were made from solid rubber. While these tires were resistant to damage, they did not provide a smooth ride. The air-filled tire, or to be technical about it, the Pneumatic Tire was invented and patented in the United States in 1847. However, they were not commercially successful until reintroduced over 40 years later. The popularity of the air-filled tire owes its success to the bicycle. The air-filled tires on the bicycle provided the rider a very smooth ride, and people wanted that level of comfort on larger transportation. Today, one significant difference between bicycle tires and car tires is that bicycle tires have an innertube that sits inside of the outer rubber tire. The tube expands, pressing against the tire to give it strength. Tires with innertubes are called Bias Ply Tires. Bias Ply Tires were used in the early part of the 20th Century. In 1948, steel-belted radials were invented. These tires did not have an innertube, but they had a belt of steel running around the entire tire at a 90-degree angle from the rim, which is why they are called radial. The strength provided by radial tires extended the life of tires, provided better steering and greater stability. They also helped to increase a car's gas mileage. Newer radials have ply cords made of nylon, rayon, or polyester.

Tires Continue to Advance

The latest technology is that of “run-flat” tires. Run-flat tires allow you to get to a safe place to change your tire without having to ride on the rim and potentially cause even more damage to your rim and car. There are two types of run-flat tires, self-supporting and support ring. Self-supporting run-flat tires have a reinforces sidewall that can hold up the weight of the car. Support ring tires have a ring of hard rubber in the center of the tire. Even if the air was lost, you are still riding on the ring instead of riding on your rim. As you can see, tires are not simple. There are many types, makes, models, and different technologies that are being used. If you have mismatched tires or you have not checked your wheel alignment recently, even with the latest and greatest tire technology, you are going wear through your tires very quickly, and no amount of technology is going to help.