3 tyre safety tips for end of summer

With the final days of summer upon us, now is the time to spend a few extra minutes performing a tyre safety check. Here are three easy steps to ensure your tyres will be ready to handle the season change and keep you and your family safe year-round.
Stay on top of your tyre pressure
Many drivers enjoy road trips from early summer through October and both under-inflation and over-inflation can affect your ride. Overinflated tyres can degrade ride comfort, reduce traction, cause fast centreline wear and result in increased susceptibility to tyre/suspension damage due to harder impacts with pot holes and road hazards. Similarly, underinflated tyres are prone to uneven wear, heat buildup leading to structural damage, and reduced impact resistance. Underinflation can sub-optimise stopping and cornering power and result in poor fuel economy. Checking inflation pressure is most accurate when the vehicle has been at rest and out of direct sunshine for several hours.
Check your tyre tread depth
After a long summer of family road trips, you will need to determine if your summer tyres have worn out. While obvious signs of damage such as cracks, splits and punctures can help drivers identify a problem, it’s also important to check tyre tread depth on a monthly basis. Tread depth plays an important role in how well your tyres maintain steering control and traction when the road is wet, slushy, snowy, icy, muddy or gravelly. Remember that tyres depend on their treads to grip, so the deeper the tread, the better the tyre will be in both rain and snow.
Know what questions to ask when buying new tyres
Once you decide it’s time to invest in new tyres, you should know the right questions to ask. The answers will vary depending on the region and the type of weather you live in. In many places driving on summer tyres into the fall and winter will be unsafe. All-season tyres are created to handle a wide variety of road conditions, while winter tyres are better geared toward deep snows. If you are interested in the ability to drive both on- and off-road regularly, all-terrain tyres may be the best option for your vehicle.
Additionally, asking how the tyres are rated and what that rating means will tell you how long the tyre tread is expected to last. The traction grade communicates the ability of the tyre to halt within a shorter distance and the temperature grade lets you know how the tyre will resist heat.
No matter what type of tyre you choose, changing weather and road conditions means your tyres need to be at their top performance to keep you and your family safe. Now is the time to inspect your tyres and invest in new ones before challenging weather strikes and tyre inventories start to dwindle.