On tire sidewall
Inside the door jamb
There is an average of 11,000 tire-related accidents every year, with more than 600 fatalities due to these accidents according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. It’s never been more important to take proper care of your tires.
How do you know if your tires are safe? Many local tire shops offer free tire inspections.
We’ve compiled this list of tire safety tips for staying safe while on the road. This includes tips on how to perform tire checks and look for signs of serious problems. We’ll also explain how to monitor the condition of your tires, so you know you when you need to replace your tires well before they pop.
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Let’s check out some of the best tire safety tips for safer daily driving.
Tire Bubbles and Bulges
Bumped a curb? Hit a pothole? Or just feeling like your car is driving strangely? When something impacts a tire, there’s a chance that a bulb or bulge appears on your tire. This is very dangerous!
A tire bubble indicates that the interior construction of your tire has been damaged, and the high air pressure is pushing against the outer rubber of your tire, resulting in an uneven bubble. Tire bubbles put a lot of pressure on one specific part of the tire and can lead to a blowout, which is very dangerous while driving.
Obviously, try to avoid obstacles and debris on the road, as well as not overloading your car with more weight than it can handle.
If you do hit something, as soon as it is safe to do so, pull over and give your tires a quick inspection to assess damage. You may want to have someone slowly roll your car forward to check the entire surface of all four tires, from a safe but visible distance. When inspecting your tires, look for:
- Foreign objects wedged into the tread or sidewalls
- Bulges, cracks or irregularities in the sidewalls
- Valve stem damage
- Tire age (learn how to decode when and where tires are made)
If you’re looking for more tips on how to prevent tire bubbles, and information on whether tire bubbles can be fixed or not (and what tire bubbles look like), you can read more about the topic in this blog post on tire bubbles.
Maintaining Proper Tire Pressure
Making sure your tires are at the correct pressure is a routine part of vehicle maintenance. Tire pressure, or air pressure, is measured in pounds per square inch (PSI). The PSI of your tire indicates how much air pressure is inside your tire. Air pressure is essential to proper tire function, as the pressure helps your tire maintain its shape while you drive!
Underinflated tires wear down faster and can even harm your vehicle’s performance as your vehicle slides and struggles to gain traction on the road. Conversely, overinflated tires can potentially puncture or burst from the added pressure, resulting in a dangerous blowout while driving. Every car has a recommended PSI that can be found on the inside of your driver’s door.
For more about what affects tire pressure and how to check it, including photos of information placards, check out this article on understanding tire pressure.
Patching, Plugging, or Repairing a Tire
Can you patch over a hole in your tire? Can a minor scratch be plugged or repaired? The answer is sometimes; it depends on the nature of the tire damage. Small tears to the tread area of a tire can potentially be repaired with a patch, and small tread-area punctures may be repaired with a tire plug.
The crucial part of this is the tread area. It’s not recommended to try to patch a puncture or tear on the sidewall of a tire. Although it may be tempting to save money by repairing your tire, rather than buying a new one, an improper repair can result in a blowout while on the road, causing significantly more damage to your car.
To learn more about repairing tires and when you can and can’t fix your tire, check out this blog post on when to patch, plug, or repair a tire.
Tire Balance and Wheel Alignment
When you mount new tires or wheels on your vehicle, it’s not unusual that the weight distribution of your vehicle could be uneven across all four tires. To mitigate this, tire installers usually balance the wheels and tires during installation. Not only does this reduce road noise and vibration, but it also ensures your tires are wearing evenly, rather than unevenly because of the uneven weight distribution.
Wheel alignment, on the other hand, has to do with your car’s suspension and steering. This should be be done by a trained mechanic. Alignment ensures your vehicle doesn’t drift off to the side when you’re driving. Poor wheel alignment can also put pressure on your tires in unexpected ways, causing them to wear down quicker.
To learn more about how tires are balanced and wheels are aligned, read more: What You Should Know About Wheel Alignment and Tire Balancing.
Rotating Your Tires
When you’ve had your oil changed, you’ve may have heard a recommendation that tires be “rotated” at the same time. Why should this matter?
Tire rotation refers to where the four tires are positioned. Each position (front left, back right, etc.) can wear over time, based on its position on the vehicle. This results in wear on one particular area of your tire. Not only does this potentially increase the wear of your tires, but it also reduces the lifetime of your tires. To mitigate this, it’s recommended to rotate the positions of your tires every 5,000 to 8,000 miles.
To learn more about when to rotate your tires as well as different patterns that you can use to rotate your tires, including images of tire rotation patterns, check out our article on tire and wheel rotations.
Unsafe or Bad Tires
Bad tires have clear indicators that they’re dangerous to drive on that can be easily spotted during a tire inspection. Some common signs of unsafe or bad are:
- Car shaking or vibrating while driving
- Visible tire wires or cords on the tread or sides of the tire
- Smooth or worn-down treads (check the treadwear indicator of your tire!)
- Cracks or aforementioned bubbles on your tire
These are all signs that a tire may not have much structural integrity left. A tire with visible tire wires or cords is vulnerable to popping or tearing while driving, for example. Learn more about what these bad tire signs look like and what they mean in this article, 5 Signs You Have Bad Tires.
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