Tires tend to lose air over time. Buy a digital tire gauge and check your tires once a month and before a long trip. Don't forget the spare. Getting a flat tire and discovering that your spare is also flat is a miserable experience. Inspect your spare as you would your other tires. Check for even wear. When you check tread depth, check both the inside and outside edge of the tires. Look for tire damage. When you check pressure, inspect the sides of the tires for nicks, bulges, cracks and cuts. Never hesitate to replace a worn or damaged tire. Tires are not cheap, but they are vital to the safety of you and your car's occupants. Remember, the tires are the only thing that connect your car to the road. Advanced safety features such as anti lock brakes and electronic stability control can't do their life-saving jobs without four good tires. Never set pressure to match the number listed on a tire's sidewall -- that number is the maximum safe inflation pressure for the tire and has nothing to do with the recommendation for your vehicle. If tire wear looks even, use a depth gauge to check the tread depth at three points around the tire. You can use a penny to do a quick thread-wear check. Insert the penny into the tread with the top of Lincoln's head pointing down. If you can see the top of his head, the tire is worn out. Driving on wet roads with worn tires can be very dangerous because the tread is not deep enough to channel water out. Even though our worn tires had tread that measured double the minimum depth, acceleration, stopping and especially cornering were dramatically affected. Take a few minutes today to check your tires, continue to check them regularly, and pass on the recommendation to your friends. We'd all feel safer knowing that the vehicle coming toward us on the highway has properly inflated tires with good tread.
