How to get the best out of your car tyres

Car tires are very important, as the braking distance depends very much on their appropriate choice and quality. A few meters can sometimes make the difference between killing or not killing somebody, especially in winter, when roads are snowy or wet.

One important issue is to know when it is time to change your tyres. Michelin has a guide on how to check the tyres to determine if they need replacement. One of the most interesting tricks shared by Michelin is “The Penny Trick”: place a penny into the most shallow tread groove with Lincoln’s head down. If the top of his head remains visible, then the tire should be replaced.

Another controversial issue is the superiority of winter tires compared to all season ones, during winter time. All big tires manufacturers recommend the winter tires, being demonstrated their superiority in emergency braking situations. Not only they have a different profile, better adapted for mud and snow, but also the material they are made of has special properties that make it resist at low temperatures. If you have an ATV, then you surely need winter tires, but as they can be quite expensive, the second hand, cheap ATV tires can be very good as well. Be aware also of the fact that the correct inflation pressure of car tyres makes them more efficient.

If you decide to go for winter tyres, then change all 4 of them. Many people would say that changing two is enough, but experience had shown that all you get is an unstable car, which behaves unpredictably especially in curves. It is much better to keep your all seasons tires then do this silly change that endangers your life.

For scientific tire testing, all important manufacturers published a lot of data over time. In case you want to see also an unscientific testing, pay a visit to Porsche964 and see the test they performed and their conclusions.

Nevertheless, the best trick of all is to adjust your driving speed to the road conditions, because it is much more important to arrive at your destination, than to arrive early. Besides, it is simple math: if you calculate how much time you save by going 10% faster at a 2 hours drive, you’ll see that you save only 12 minutes (even less in real life, due to the fact that the average speed has a strange property of being lower than expected, in all cases). 12 minutes are definitely not worth a life, are they?