Most people don’t think much of tires except something round and black rubber things which you might puncture if you are unlucky and that you have to change them now and then. If you are watching a lot of motorsports, you are probably more educated on the role and importance of the tires, as many motor races are determined by tire selection and tire strategy. Formula 1 racing is probably the most extreme when it comes to tire strategy, where they choose between soft and hard tires and optimize the grip versus wear rate to try to win the races. Regardless of what vehicle you have, if you don’t match it with proper tires, that can translate the vehicle’s performance.
This is why in a similar way as in motorsports, you have to optimize the tires to ensure that you get the most out of your vehicle. You will most likely have to choose more than one tire for your vehicle for areas with varying weather conditions. It is not practical to have more than two sets of tires to cover the year, but if you could change tires quicker and easier, you might have ended up having more options. It is a bit in the same way that we have different shoes depending on what we plan to do. Tennis shoes, walking shoes, and beach flip-flops are all shoes but serve a different purpose.
With the tires for vehicles, you have tires for different types of vehicles and different weather conditions. A family car, an SUV, and sports cars will have different tires and have different options for summer and winter. All-season tires are the most commonly used tires, and if you live in areas without real winters, you can use all-season tires all year round. If you have some occasional winters, you can opt to have two sets of tires or an all-weather tire. The all-weather tires that are winter approved are a good compromise for driving all year round with the one and same set. It is important to rotate the tires to even out the difference in wear between the front and the rear tires. If you change between summer and winter tires, the rotation will be done at this time.
SUV and electric cars will often also have special tires, as they are heavier, where hybrid and electric cars have heavy battery packs and higher torque, so they need more wear-resistant tires. They also rely on more frequent tire rotations than when you change between seasonal tires. You should therefore measure the tread depth and change when you have a difference of around 5/64 inches between the rear and front tires. The rotation is done by just changing the tires on the same side with each other. This will even out the wear and will make your drive more balanced and prolong the lifetime of your tires so that you don’t have to replace them as often.
For more information regarding tires, visit: https://www.nokiantires.com/