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When the tread depth gets too low or your tires hit the six-year mark, it's time for new rubber.
By
Whitney Vandiver
Whitney Vandiver
Writer | Small business, payments
Whitney Vandiver is a writer at NerdWallet. She previously wrote for the oil and gas industry and has been published in national journals and international magazines. She earned a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Central Oklahoma and a master's degree and doctorate in linguistics from Purdue University. When she's not writing about finances, she enjoys reading, writing her second novel and cuddling with her Irish wolfhound.
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Edited by Julie Myhre-Nunes
Julie Myhre-Nunes
Assistant Assigning Editor | Auto loans, consumer credit
Julie Myhre-Nunes is an assistant assigning editor at NerdWallet. She has been working in the personal finance space for more than 10 years. Before joining NerdWallet, Julie oversaw editorial teams at NextAdvisor, Red Ventures and Quote.com. Her personal finance insight has been featured on Forbes, The Boston Globe and CNBC throughout the years.
Julie’s writing has been published by USA Today, Business Insider and Wired Insights, among others. Email: <a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]m</a>.
Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners who compensate us. This may influence which products we write about and where and how the product appears on a page. However, this does not influence our evaluations. Our opinions are our own. Here is a list of our partners and here's how we make money.
While the consensus across the auto industry is that you should consider replacing your tires at least every six years, there’s no magic number for how often you should replace them.
Tires become unsafe when tread becomes too thin, rubber is degraded by time and temperature or their sidewalls are damaged. A flat is an inconvenience, but a blowout or sketchy grip can lead to an accident.
Although tires can be a substantial expense for a car owner to handle at one time, wear and tear — and their replacement — is mostly predictable.
Here’s a rundown of how to determine if your tires need to be replaced and common signs that your tires aren’t up to par.
Tires have grooves known as tread that help them grip the road. While most new tires have a tread depth around 10/32nds of an inch, the tread wears down over time. This makes it more difficult to steer your vehicle, reduces traction and increases braking time.
The U.S. Department of Transportation deems tires that have tread at or below 2/32nds of an inch to be unsafe. While your tire technically has enough tread to drive at this point, it can be dangerous to drive your car in certain conditions or for long distances.
There are three ways to figure out your tires’ tread depth:
Tread wear indicators are built into tires and are raised, evenly spaced sections in the grooves of your tire tread. On new tires, they are not as high as the tread. However, when the tread reaches the same level as the indicators, it means it’s time to replace the tires.
Tire tread gauges are relatively cheap tools that let you measure your tread in thirty-seconds of an inch. This will show you the exact measurement of your tire tread.
The penny test lets you estimate tread depth based on where the tread hits a penny. To do this test, take a penny, turn it upside-down, and insert it straight down in the groove of a tire’s tread. Look straight on at the penny to determine where the tread hits President Lincoln’s profile. If you can see his entire head, you’ve hit the mark and need new tires.
Regardless of how many miles they’ve driven, tires degrade over time and become more prone to failure. Factors like environmental conditions, storage and maintenance can influence how long a tire will last even if it’s only driven a few hundred miles a month.
While there’s no set requirement for when to replace tires according to age, the general recommendation is to replace them six years after the manufacture date and to never drive on tires that are older than 10 years.
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Of course there are other times when your tires are telling you it’s time for replacement despite what your tread measurement might say.
You moved to a new climate. Some tires are designed for specific conditions such as extreme temperatures. Winter tires, for example, have deeper tread and are meant to be more flexible in cold weather; driving them on warm pavement can wear them down more quickly. If you move to a new climate, pay attention to road conditions and weather patterns to determine if you need different tires.
You’re losing traction. If it feels like your car is slipping or sliding during wet weather, this could be a sign of low tire tread that is failing to channel water away effectively. Because tire tread can wear unevenly, you might not notice that some of your tread has worn thin and is affecting your traction.
Most modern cars activate a warning light when your car loses traction. If you are seeing this warning light more frequently as time goes on, check the condition of your tires.
Your tires aren’t holding pressure like they should. Certain types of tire damage, including debris between the rim and the tire and damage to the sidewall, can cause continuous pressure loss. Some damage might be repairable, but some situations will call for new tires.
🤓Nerdy Tip
An average of 2% air loss in tires is common for every drop of 10 degrees in outside temperature. So don’t worry if your tire pressure varies a bit when it starts to get colder outside.
About the author: Whitney Vandiver is a writer at NerdWallet currently focusing on small business. Read more
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Maybe you got a used car a few years ago or maybe you recently purchased a new car. No matter the situation, as a car-owner you may be wondering, how often should you replace your tires? When you should replace your tires differs slightly from vehicle to vehicle and driver to driver. However, there are a few standards that should help you determine when to change your tires next.
When and how often you should change your tires depends on a few factors. When thinking about replacing your tires, ask yourself these questions:
Along with the answers from above, there are a few pieces of information you can grab from your vehicle to help determine the next time you should replace your tires.
The following should only take a few minutes to find out.
Most car experts will tell you to change your tires every 6 years or so. If you are constantly driving, you may need to change your tires earlier. Likewise, if you don’t drive often you can get away with a few extra years.
For a car that you bought new, you can easily bet on changing your tires 6 years after your purchase. For used cars, you’ll likely need to look at the date printed on the tire.
To see when your tires were manufactured, look for a four-digit number sequence on the outside of the tire. This will tell you the week of the year in which they were made. For example, 1112 means that the tires were made in the 11th week of 2012.
Another good rule of thumb when it comes to tire replacement is to replace your tires every 25,000-50,000 miles. In most cars, you can check your total mileage on the dashboard.
Aside from time and mileage, you can always check if your tires look like they need to be replaced.
To do so, get a quarter and insert it headfirst into the center of the tire tread. If Washington’s head is even with the tread, your tires are safe, but you need to get them replaced soon.
Doing the same trick with a penny, if Lincoln’s head is even with the tread, hopefully, you have some money saved up because you need to change your tires ASAP.
Another physical test to see if it’s time for a tire replacement is to be mindful of how your car feels when you are driving. Does the steering wheel feel smooth when driving, or does it vibrate or veer to one side over the other. If it does any of the latter, consider getting your tires changed.
While there are steps you can take to expand the lifespan of your tires, when they are worn out, you need to replace them. You can’t put off changing your tires, as it is a safety risk to you and other vehicles on the road. Old tires can affect the way your car breaks and stops, which can lead to accidents.
Be a responsible car owner and replace your tires when needed.
All car owners need to be on top of replacing their tires. How often should you replace your tires? It might vary from person to person, but there are standards in place to determine tire health. Is your car due for a tire replacement? Then check out Christian’s Tire Shop. We have all the name brands you could possibly want, right here in Albuquerque.
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How do you know when tires are completely worn out and it's time to change them? Everything is simple. For summer tires, the limit is 1.6 mm of residual tread depth, and for winter (or all-season tires used in winter) - 4 mm. Modern summer tires can travel from 40,000 to 70,000 km, depending on driving style and vehicle characteristics. An average motorist rolls such a mileage on summer tires in 2-3 seasons.
Moreover, wear implies not only a decrease in tread depth. For millions of cycles of deformation, the strength of the carcass and its adhesion to the layers of the rubber compound are violated. In short, every 2-3 years you should buy a new set of tires. nine0003
In case of irreparable damage to one of the tires and a relatively high total mileage of the kit, it is also worth considering replacing it. Well, or about buying at least a pair of new tires, which, for any type of drive, should be installed on the front axle. We put two tires back - the most decent of the remaining ones.
Many motorists drive only a few thousand kilometers a year. This does not mean that the tires will serve you for several decades. According to Russian requirements (GOST 4754-97), the service life of passenger car tires is 5 years from the date of manufacture. And for example, Continental recommends that all car tires (including the spare tire) older than 10 years old should be replaced with new ones.
Therefore, with small runs, you can navigate for ten years. The date of manufacture of the tire is indicated on the sidewall. Usually it is an oval with four numbers. The first two are the ordinal number of the week in the year, the last two indicate the year.
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Tires should be rotated periodically in accordance with the vehicle manufacturer's recommendations - information on this can be found in the owner's manual.
We can advise you to carefully use the tires and, most importantly, to store them correctly in the off-season. First of all, during storage, it is important to exclude direct sunlight from hitting the tires, which greatly age the rubber. Tires without rims should be placed vertically, and stacked on rims. nine0003
And before installing tires on a car at the beginning of the season, evaluate their condition.
There should be no cracks in the tread and sidewalls. The tire should not be dry, it should remain rubbery and not look like baked plastic.
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Winter tires have a much shorter life span. They almost always fail due to the wear of the treadmill, because the tread of a new tire is 7–8 mm, and only 3–4 mm remain working height. If the tires are studded, then with such wear there are very few metal elements left, and the tire will not provide adequate safety when driving on a winter road. However, not only spikes, but also Velcro, with such a degree of wear, also lose most of their capabilities. nine0003
The real life of winter tires rarely exceeds 30,000 km. "Bald" winter tires without studs can be re-rolled in summer, but their grip on hot road surfaces will be very poor. This must be taken into account, especially when braking.
***
So: tires that have not yet worn out along the tread (that is, up to 1.6 mm tread depth for summer tires, 4 mm for winter tires) are changed either ten years after the date of issue, or when the rubber layer cracks tires or damage. nine0003
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Driving in Zen
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Thursday, April 21, 2016 4:10:19 pm Europe/Moscow
One of the most frequently asked questions among buyers at the tire center is which axle to put new tires on? The answer is simple: new tires are always installed on the rear axle of the car, regardless of the drive.
There is a particularly treacherous surface for a tire in the summer - flooded road, asphalt, hidden under a film of water. Sometimes the thickness of this film is not even visible to the eye. nine0003
It is water that significantly impairs the behavior of the tire. When there is a lot of water, it is able to create a water wedge that separates the tire from the surface. For traction in such conditions, many years ago, the tire tread was indented with a network of drainage channels, and the tire received a tread pattern as a result. Numerous drainage channels of various sizes and directions endowed the tire with a negative profile, which has a three-dimensional structure and is able to reduce the negative impact of water. nine0003
The more worn the tires are, the less water the tire can carry out of the contact patch and the faster it will lose traction on the road.
Option 1. New tires installed on the front axle
Only the appearance of the car benefits from such an installation, which in the parking lot, with the wheels turned out, can attract additional attention with a new tread. There will be no problem using tires in this way ... until the first rain. nine0120
Compare:
Front axle:
the more difficult it is to pass without consequences).
Rear axle:
Lack of good drainage system due to more worn tread.
No additional driver control.
No additional engine load.
The rear axle will go out of control instantly, and it does not need a downpour, a small film of water on the pavement will be enough.
The electronic systems of the car will not be able to stabilize it - physically there is not enough contact area between the tire and the road. As a result, there will be a loss of control over the car due to a rear axle skid, which few drivers can handle. nine0003
Option 2: New tires installed on the rear axle
If the front axle is equipped with tires with a lot of wear, the driver will immediately feel problems with traction and take measures: reduce speed or correct steering behavior. And, of course, it's hard to imagine a road covered with water that a front axle with worn tread can go through, but on which a rear axle with newer tires will lose traction.
New tires (if you buy two tires), you need to install only on the rear axle , regardless of the drive of the car and its technical equipment.
