Time to check your tires while the rebates are hot and before winter arrives

Tires are designed to provide your vehicle with traction so that when you apply the gas, or hit the brakes, the tires grab the road. That’s why they make tires out of rubber. That’s also why design engineers have spent decades developing tread patterns that will channel the water, dig through mud and snow and maintain a degree of grip even on ice.

No matter how good the design of your tires’ tread, over time, as the tread wears away, the tires will lose their traction. It’s inevitable.

As the tire turns, propelling your car down the road, or when it comes to a halt and drags the car to a stop, bits of rubber are torn away from the surface of the tire. Eventually, the tread has worn away to a point where the tire has lost a significant amount of its grip.

When tires have worn sufficiently, they increasingly present a potential safety hazard. They’re not as good when you want to get up and go. They’re also not up to par when you need to come to a quick stop. On wet or icy roads, this can lead to cataclysmic situations.

The old test for tread wear still works: while looking at Abraham Lincoln on a penny, turn the top of his head towards the tire and insert the penny into the tread. If his head is not completely outside of the tread when the penny hits bottom, your tread is worn beyond the safety point (beyond 1/16th of an inch).

On the other hand, even when bald or balding tires aren’t posing a direct safety hazard, they can prove quite a nuisance. Have you ever seen someone trying to drive up an icy incline? Their tires spin but they just don’t move. In such cases, the odds are pretty good that they have bad tires.

The same principle is true when someone gets stuck in snow or ice. Good tires would go a long way towards avoiding that situation and helping to get them out.

This is a particularly good time of year to check the tread on your tires. For one thing, winter is coming and, with it, all the challenges of driving on snowy, icy and wet roads. Better to find out if you need new tires before you actually wish you had them.

Another good reason to check your tires now is that there are special offers from tire manufacturers. For instance, Denny Norton, of Ringwood based Performance Unlimited, said that Goodyear is currently offering a Fall Tire Rebate.

“When you purchase a set of four select Goodyear or Dunlop tires, before Dec. 31, you’ll receive a Rebate Card in the mail worth up to $80,” he said. “That will go a long way to helping out if you do need tires before winter sets in.”

For more information about the Tire Rebate and prices, call Norton at 815-728-0343.

Comments

Is your antifreeze safe from freezing this Richmond winter

You still have time to have it checked Well, there’s no denying it – winter tends to get chilly here in Richmond. We have to deal with snow and ice on the roads, scraping the same off our windows and windshield, and staying warm while we drive. Of course, you had your antifreeze checked before winter rolled into town. What?! You didn’t have your antifreeze checked before winter clamped down on Richmond? So, how’s your antifreeze doing? If you haven’t had it checked, there’s really no way of knowing, is there? This car has overheated in the middle of a Richmond winter. But, on the other end of the spectrum, the antifreeze can also freeze if it's not up to its job. Hopefully, you haven’t had a serious problem with your antifreeze already. If you did, you’d probably know. When antifreeze fails, it’s a potentially catastrophic condition for your vehicle’s engine. You could have hoses that have burst because of freezing antifreeze. Worse than that, your engine block may have crac...

Blocks of ice falling from cars in McHenry could cause accidents or damage

We’ve all seen those blocks of snow falling from behind the rear tires of a car when the snow rolls into McHenry . Fortunately, they’re just packed snow that will disintegrate under your vehicle’s tires as you simply drive right through them, right? Don’t count on it. Those blocks of snow are often packed so tight, condensed by the thaw-and-freeze cycle, that they’re anything but oversized snowballs . They’re often more like boulders. Hit one of those blocks and the collision between the block and one of your tires could send you careening off the road or into oncoming traffic. In some cases, they’re so solid you could pound them with a sledgehammer with little effect. They truly can represent a serious road hazard. The problem is that it’s difficult to tell how solidly they’re packed when you see them on the road, left their unwittingly by another driver. Either way, your best bet is to try to avoid them. But you want to be careful dodging blocks of ice in the road, too. You need...

Timely maintenance is even more important with your Johnsburg Electric Vehicle

Even if you have an electric vehicle in your Johnsburg driveway, maintenance is still critical. You pull out of your Johnsburg driveway and you watch the gas stations go by as you smile from behind the wheel of your EV – Electric Vehicle. Of course, at some point, you will have to stop and charge the battery but you still take some comfort that you’re not standing next to your car as the fuel pumps into your tank. One of the true comforts you take with your EV is that the mechanics of your vehicle are simplified. You don’t have to worry about the engine breaking down anymore, and we all know how costly that can be. But there’s more to your EV vehicle than you may have considered when you first parked it in your Johnsburg driveway. Many of the parts found on gasoline-driven vehicles are also present on your EV. These require the same maintenance as your gasoline-powered vehicle. For instance, you EV still has: Tires and Wheels Brakes Steering and Suspension Windshield Wipers and So...

Performance Unlimited Blog

Search This Blog