How to Maintain and Protect Your Tires

Maintaining, protecting, and keeping your tires, especially new tires, in good shape helps extend their lifecycle in most circumstances. Proper tire care saves you money in the long run because you don't need to replace them as often.

There are a few steps you can take to help keep your tires in great shape and lasting longer, including installing new tires when your old ones wear out, maintaining your tires once installed, and keeping them from cracking.

Method 1 of 3: Install new tires

The best way to make sure you always have good tires on your vehicle is to install new ones once the old tires wear out. You can attempt to keep your tires in the best shape possible, but eventually they do wear out and need replacements.

Step 1: Buy quality tires. 

In addition to purchasing quality tires from a reliable brand, make sure the tires you purchase are appropriate to the season. If you experience inclement weather in the winter season, you should consider buying snow or all-season tires.

Inspect any tires before you purchase them, looking for any imperfections, including nicks, cuts, or holes. If buying reconditioned or used tires, thoroughly check the tires for wear and damage.

Step 2: Pay attention to tire mileage. 

Keep in mind the mileage expected of your tires.

When buying new tires, pay attention to the mileage they are good for. Better quality, and thus more expensive tires, tend to last more miles than cheaper versions.

Step 3: Replace all worn tires. 

When you do need to replace your tires, make sure you replace all four tires at once.

With properly rotated tires, you should see even wear across all four of the tires on your vehicle.

Tip: Sometimes you can get away with replacing just the two rear tires. In this case, it is better to place the new tires on the rear axle. The rear tires play a large part in gripping the road when it is wet and can provide better overall handling. In any case, if your tires are worn to a point where grip is an issue, you should replace them.