Choosing The Right Tires For Your Car

When was the last time you closely inspected your tires for signs of damage or abnormal wear? Or checked the tire pressure? There’s no single component in a car more critical to its stability, handling and ride quality than tires, yet most of us don’t give them much thought until one goes flat.

You should be regularly checking your tires for signs of obvious damage or uneven wear (a possible sign of an alignment issue), keeping your tires properly inflated, rotating your tires on schedule, and checking your tire tread depth (you can do the penny test if you don’t have a tread depth tool). It’s simple preventative care that you can do in your driveway to ensure that you and your family stay safe while on the road this summer.

If the time has come to replace your tires, it’s important that you choose the right tires based on how, where, and what you drive, because all tires are not created equal. Here’s what you need to consider when you’re shopping for new tires:

What do you drive? If you drive a Porsche 911, your needs are vastly different from someone who drives a Honda Accord. The sports car driver is more concerned about the tire’s speed rating, grip, and performance, while the family man is more concerned about road noise, comfort, and longevity.

Where do you drive? If you live in Southern California, you’d be fine with a summer tire. But if you live in an area like Philadelphia that gets its fair share of snow and rain, you’re better off with an all-season tire that can handle whatever Mother Nature throws your way. And if you live in Buffalo, you need a separate set of snow tires specifically for those brutal winter months.

How do you drive? If you’re someone who puts on a ton of highway miles each year, it makes sense to go with a tire that has a long treadlife. But if you want tires that make a car really stick in the twisties, you want a tire with a softer rubber compound, which naturally wears faster.

I know that it can seem a bit overwhelming at first, but Michelin has made our lives easier by combining many of these unique features into a single tire. Here are three great options to choose from:

The Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3+ is an ultra-high performance all-season tire that combines a unique tread design with enhanced compound technology to provide summer levels of wet and dry grip with cold weather and snow mobility. It sounds impossible, but I have these tires on my car and they are amazing!

The Defender LTX M/S with EverTread compound is a great option for light truck and SUV/crossover owners looking for a strong tire that combines durable tread life (50,000-70,000 mile warranty), improved gravel wear, all-season confidence and excellent fuel efficiency in one. There’s also a Defender offering for regular cars and minivans, with an unbelievable 90,000 mile warranty.

The Michelin Premier A/S is a luxury performance touring tire with a revolutionary new EverGrip technology, which provides exceptional levels of safety even as the tires wear down. In most tires, as the rain grooves lose depth, the amount of water they can funnel away from the tire is diminished. But these tires have hidden grooves that emerge as the tire wears, providing additional help in channeling water away and maintaining wet traction over time.

Hopefully this information will help you make an informed decision when it’s time for you to replace your tires. And of course, if you have any other questions, leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to help!