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Your tires will last much longer if you:

Increase their inflation pressure.  The higher the pressure (within reason!) the better your mileage and tire life, but the ride gets slightly stiffer (you may not even notice).  All tires have tiny leaks, and you should check their pressure at least twice a year.  If you lose a valve cap, replace it – they cost next to nothing; any tire store should give you a few just for asking.  Lower pressure causes the tire to flex more as it rolls, and that increases friction and heat.  A really low tire is MUCH harder to roll down the road — do a test on a bicycle if you doubt it.  You’ll find maximum inflation ratings on the tire.  Don’t go to the maximum – 5 or 10 pounds below max is fine.  Measure tire pressure with a gauge when the vehicle has been parked for a few hours.  Inflate tires to nearly the same pressure, but some cars do best at 42 psi in the front tires with 40 psi rears.

Truck tires and handling are very different from cars.  Get advice about your truck or SUV from a tire store.

There’s a trick to using the air hose to sucessfully mate it with the valve on your tire.  You have to press them together very solidly.  The first ‘give’ you’ll feel is your tire’s valve opening (and letting air escape from your tire).  Press harder, and the valve in the air hose opens up, too, so air pumps into your tire.  You can test the air valves with your fingertip — you’ll see that the tire valve is soft, but it takes quite a bit of force to open the valve on the air hose.  Press them together too lightly, and you’ll just let air out of your tire.

Don’t fill a bicycle tire at a service station that has a big indoor compressor.  If you must pump up a bike tire, don’t hold the air chuck on the tire valve — just press it quickly and release, repeat as needed.  It will fill very fast.  If you hold the air chuck to the valve, the tire will blow out (very loudly) almost instantly. Keep squeezing the tire until it feels very firm, but not solid. Use a tire pressure gauge.  Cheap gas station tire pumps inside a little box (that often charge 25 cents and make a lot of noise) are safer for bicycle tires because they’re so slow you have time to stop pumping.

A leak can be caused by a nail or hole that’s hard to find, or a leaking valve or valve seat.  A plug is a quick, $10 fix at a gas station, but it stresses the tire badly.  A patch at a tire dealer costs a little more, takes longer to install, but is much better for the life of the tire and your safety.  Many tire stores give you any patch repairs you’ll ever need, but some tire stores charge a fee.  A hole in the sidewall of a tire is usually unrepairable.  Tires over 5 or 6 years old, regardless of their mileage or tread wear, tend to dry, crack and fail, and should be replaced.

Avoid the contractors’ parking area at the building supply store.  The pro’s can drop nails when they’re loading their truck.  Drive and park somewhere else.

For the same reasons, avoid alleys, construction areas, industrial areas, homes being built, etc.  On the street, stay in the worn area of your lane — trimming the inside edge around a long curve may seem exciting, but no one else drives there.  If there’s a piece of junk waiting, you could be the one to find it in your tire.

Turn through corners slowly.  If you can hear your tires squeal at any time, you’re causing extraordinary wear.

Don’t bump into curbs.  Instead,  slow down, wait until later to turn the steering wheel, then turn it more aggressively than you usually do.  The result will be a short, sharp turn far from the curb, instead of a long, wide turn that runs into the curb.  You don’t have to be extreme, just work more in that direction.

When shopping for tires, some have physically harder rubber than others.  Harder tires usually last longer, have longer mileage warranties, and may cost more.  If the tire costs an extra $30, but lasts nearly twice as long, do the math and decide if you’ll own the car that long.  Harder tires also take a little longer to wear in after a tire rotation, so they ‘growl’ for a while.  That noise is excess wear until they get broken into their new positions, so you may want to stretch rotations a little further with harder tires.

Whenever you walk by a tire, look at it for stones stuck in the tread.  Use a key or similar tool to pry it out.  Stones cause the tread to squirm and heat up.  You don’t need to spend a lot of time on inspection, just find whatever you can.  Check harder after driving on a gravel road.

Many tire stores offer their customers a free tire rotation every 5,000 miles.  Car dealers often charge $30 to $80 for the same service.  You can do it yourself, but it’s not much fun, because you have two tires off the car at any given moment.  The tech can also show you if wheel balance or alignment work needs to be done, evidenced by odd wear patterns.  If an alignment cost is extraordinary, inspect the severity of  wear on the tire tread; if it’s very minor, it may be difficult to justify the expense (usually a few hundred dollars).  Front or rear wheels might need alignment.  Don’t run into curbs and big potholes and you’ll likely never need an alignment.

If you’re inclined to compare tire brands, take a walk through any parking lot alongside the cars. You’ll see that the metal weights installed on tires to balance them are sometimes huge, sometimes tiny, sometimes not even needed (or might have fallen off).  The fatter the weight, the ‘less round’ the tire is, so overall quality is suspect.  Avoid brands that have large balance weights.  If you do this, you’ll probably find Michelins have the smallest (or no) weights, no matter which tire model.  Pirellis are often even rounder, but they’re for performance cars and can be quite expensive.

Charlie Gosh

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