What To Look For When Buying Tires For A Car

What To Look For When Buying Tires For A Car

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Your tire choice determines the quality of your ride, as well as the speed and load of your vehicle. It also indicates whether you have wasted your money on nothing or the tire will serve you for years. If your tire choice is wrong, it can also jeopardize yourself and your car. The wrong size can become troublesome for your vehicle functions, and tire age can cause tire failure. So, make sure you have a serious attitude towards choosing the best tires for your vehicle when you go to a tire shop.

Knowing what to look for when you buy used tires will help ensure you are getting quality tires that are safe and have life left in them. Here are three crucial factors to consider anytime you are looking at purchasing used tires.

If you only need to replace one tire on your car, buying a used one is an excellent way to avoid purchasing a complete set. If your other tires are still in good condition and you can find a used one that is in decent shape as well, this may be the ideal solution for you.

Another great benefit of buying used cars is that it causes less waste and is environment-friendly. Reusing old tires helps decrease the waste created by throwing away old tires. An estimated 290 million tires are discarded in the United States alone each year! By switching to buying used tires, you can help decrease that number and contribute to a cleaner, greener planet.

Being TireWise is essential to safe driving. The only thing between you and the road are your tires. TireWise provides drivers with information about buying tires, tire maintenance and labeling, aging, fuel efficiency, and tire retailers. TireWise (PDF) is also a resource for tire manufacturers, sellers and other partners to provide essential information to consumers for choosing and caring for their tires.

Tire pressure monitoring systems continuously monitor the pressure in the tires through sensors located in the tires (direct system) or the use of wheel speed and other vehicle sensors (indirect system). The information collected by the sensors is transmitted to an on-board processor that interprets the sensor signals and warns the driver when tire pressure is below the minimum acceptable level by illuminating the TPMS symbol on your dashboard.

There are two different low tire pressure warning indicators allowed by the Federal standard. One icon is the cross-section of a tire with an exclamation mark inside. The other is a top view of a car with all four tires exposed. No matter which TPMS symbol your vehicle has, it will illuminate on the vehicle dashboard when your tire pressure is significantly under inflated.

On cold mornings, the TPMS symbol may illuminate for a short period of time and then turn off. This is likely caused by marginally low tire pressure that dips below the warning threshold overnight but rises to an acceptable level as the tires heat up through vehicle operation or an increase in external temperatures. If the TPMS symbol goes on and off, you should inspect your tires and check your tire pressure. The lamp should not illuminate when the tires are properly inflated.

Here at NHTSA.gov, we provide information to consumers about buying tires, tire maintenance and labeling, aging, and fuel efficiency. We also provide resources for tire manufacturers, retailers, and other partners to provide essential information to consumers to help them choose and care for their tires. NHTSA also issues and enforces federal safety standards for tires, rims, and tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS). Data show that TPMS can reduce the likelihood that a vehicle will have one or more significantly underinflated tires by more than 55 percent.

Tirebuyer does not offer a robust sizing tool to choose the right tires like Discount Tire and Tire Rack do, but should you end up with the wrong tires, you have a few options to return them. If you had the tires shipped to an installer, returns are free and handled at the installer. TireBuyer has its own network of trucks, which makes it easier to handle these kinds of returns. If you had the tires sent to your home or a non-Tirebuyer shop, you'll need to use FedEx to ship. The return shipping fees (usually $7.50 per tire when you drop the tires off at a FedEx location, or $15 per tire when you arrange a FedEx pickup) will come out of your refund.

One thing to note, when we tried to find tires for our 1989 Volvo 240 DL Wagon, Tirebuyer.com had no suggestions in or around the Los Angeles area. Also, Tirebuyer did not show up on Consumer Reports' survey, but like Tire Rack it has an A-plus BBB rating.

The tire vendor also offers a pretty robust road-hazard warranty, too, for a price. While it offers a pro-rated and free road hazard coverage, it also offers a warranty that extends for three years. It covers road hazard damage including tire repair for the first three years of tire ownership with its Certificate program that you can opt for when you purchase and have tires installed at one of its shops. The prices can range from $10 per tire to as much as $100 per tire, depending on how pricey the tires you purchased are.

Sales and discounts on Amazon are a bit hard to find since it will vary widely based on both the manufacturer and the seller. If you choose to go with Amazon it's best to really read the fine print and know what you are signing up for when purchasing tires via its online platform.

For each retailer, we looked at the following important factors that affect both your bottom line and the amount of hassle you have to go through to get new tires. We considered warranty, installation convenience and cost, then used Consumer Reports' most recent tire retailer satisfaction survey to help determine how happy people were with their purchases from these national retailers, as well as each company's rating on the Better Business Bureau.

The Consumer Reports tire reviews survey looked at nine different sectors across 29 national retailers. We used CR's estimated cost per tire as a reference point for our comparison, too. We also spoke to Gene Petersen, tire program leader at Consumer Reports, about the testing. And we connected with Tire Rack's Matt Edmonds, as quoted above, for general tips for finding the right tires for you and saving money in the process.

According to Petersen at Consumer Reports, there are more than 33,000 independent tire retailers in the US. That means there's a lot to sort through when you're shopping for them. Tire shops can range widely in size and how they sell tires. Everyone from big-box stores like Costco and Sam's Club and Walmart to small, local, independent tire shops offer tires for sale. These days, online retailers are also making it incredibly easy to buy tires online and have them drop-shipped to a location of your choice when you're ready to have them installed.

The first thing to do when shopping for new tires is to figure out the right size for your vehicle and the features that you want for your specific needs. To find the right size, look at the outside rim of the rubber tire (also known as the sidewall) and find the number and letter combination that is divided by a slash. You can also find your tire size by looking at the inside frame of the driver's side door.

You should take into consideration things like the environment you'll be driving in (snowy, icy, wet), the conditions of the roads you'll be driving on (sandy, dirt, paved, concrete, asphalt), the kind of driving you'll be doing (sporty and aggressive or cruising on the highway) and how much you want to spend on new tires, among other considerations. Are you looking for an all season tire or one that performs well in very bad winter conditions?

Ultimately, getting tires has become easier in the days of online shopping and delivery. With plenty of places to choose from, buying tires online can be an equally good choice as getting them at a tire shop as long as the tires you want and need are in stock. While prices can vary slightly, Petersen says, it pays more to haggle on prices for installation, warranties and other things. Tire prices are largely set in stone by the manufacturer and installers rarely have any wiggle room to negotiate.

"I always tell people to look at the total cost of getting new tires," Petersen says. "Regardless of what tires you get, you can usually save money on the installation, warranty, rotation, alignment or other offers that the installer provides."

Winter tires, also known as snow tires, help provide enhanced traction in some of the most severe winter weather conditions including ice, slush, freezing rain and snow. Start your search to buy winter tires below. If you are looking to purchase tires from other tire categories, use our Tire Finder to easily find the right fit for your vehicle.

In addition to harsh winter weather, if you encounter many hills or sharp corners in your area, you might want the winter-ready traction and control of winter tires. Additionally, unplowed snow, slush or ice can be a hazard to you when driving, and winter tires can help you face that challenge.

Many people wonder how harsh the weather needs to be in order to get winter tires. The general consensus is that if you live in a place where the temperature is consistently below 45F/7.2C, or when you must drive in challenging winter conditions, winter tires may be a good choice for you. While all-season tires can provide some traction for wet and snowy conditions, there is no denying the enhanced traction and grip that winter tires provide to help create a safer and more comfortable driving winter experience.

If you own an inexpensive vehicle, you don't have to buy budget tires. But you might want to look into this category, as part of an overall money-saving strategy. If you own an older car that you aren't trying to preserve, budget tires could also be an option (for a few years, I owned a Mazda 323 and I never spent even $50 per tire for it).

Name-brand tires are name-brand for a reason: they're well-made and reliable. Super-cheap tires that you've never heard of essentially have only price going for them. A few names are worth a look, such as General Tire, Cooper, and Falken. 781b155fdc