Even though every driver knows that their personal vehicle will deteriorate as time goes on, the hope is to prolong this inevitability as long as possible. Fortunately, there are things you can do to help combat premature deterioration. The downside is that maintenance methods will vary quite a bit depending on which part of the car you’re talking about.
To keep things simple, we’re going to focus this guide on how to extend the lifespan of your tires and wheels. They’re the part of the car that goes through the most abuse, so it’s crucial to take the steps needed to ensure their longevity. While these tips won’t make your tires and wheels last forever, they should help you keep them around for as long as possible.
The Key to Extending the Lifespan of Tires and Wheels
Before we dive into specifics, we first need to talk about the trick to giving your tires and wheels a prolonged lifespan. As long as you keep up with regular maintenance routines, you should be able to sufficiently protect your tires and wheels. While there are many ways to go about this, we’re going to focus on the ones that make the most significant impact.
How to Protect Your Tires
Since tires and wheels are not the same thing, it’s important to also handle their maintenance routines differently. As tires go through the most wear and tear, we’ll cover them first. That way, you can go a while longer without having to replace them.
Accelerate and Brake Slower
The thing that makes tires so challenging to maintain is the fact that they’re made of rubber and spend all day grinding up against asphalt and concrete. While this might make it seem like the rubber is the issue, there’s not much you can do about that since it’s the best material available to ensure your car stays on the road.
Despite all of this, one thing you do have control over is how quickly you stop and start your vehicle’s movement. The more quickly you brake and accelerate, the more your tires will grind into the pavement, causing them to wear out faster. If you want your tires to last longer, the best thing you can do for them is slow down.
Keep a Balanced Tire Pressure
Outside of adjusting your driving habits, general tire maintenance is the next best thing to prolong your tires’ lifespan. And this maintenance starts with tracking your tire pressure. While many modern cars have built-in sensors, not all do, which is why you should get into the habit of checking your tires every so often to ensure they’re not getting flat. If you drive on flat tires for too long, you might wear out the sides of your tread quicker than normal. Of course, driving on tires that are overinflated can also cause issues, with the middle of the tire wearing out more quickly.
Keeping the tire pressure at a healthy level will ensure that your tires wear out more evenly, allowing them to last as long as possible. On top of that, proper tire pressure will also help you maintain traction while on the roads.
Check Tire Alignment
You should also check the alignment of your tires. An unaligned tire usually stems from a problem with the wheel, causing a larger negative impact on the tires themselves. This is due to the fact that an unaligned wheel will put more weight onto only a portion of your tire, causing that section to wear out more quickly. If you want to avoid this issue, you’ll need to have a professional mechanic test your vehicle’s alignment and fix it when necessary.
Routinely Rotate Your Tires
If you don’t rotate your tires, an uneven wearing issue can happen. This is because tires in the front and back of a vehicle don’t always wear evenly due to the simple fact that cars put more or less stress on their wheels depending on whether they’re front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, or four-wheel drive. Luckily, regular tire rotation can help combat this issue. Ask your mechanic to rotate your vehicle’s tires every visit or two.
How to Protect Your Wheels
With the more difficult tasks out of the way, let’s take a look at some of the things you should do to protect your vehicle’s rims. While you won’t need to do many of these steps as frequently, they are just as important if you want your rims to last as long as possible.
Set Up a Cleaning Schedule
Most of the issues that wheels face are rust and internal deterioration over time. As with other parts of your car, the best way to fight these problems is with a good cleaning. When washing their cars, many people tend to forget to properly clean their wheels. While it’s crucial to scrub the tires themselves, you might need to use different kinds of products to clean certain rim materials. Failing to properly clean this area of your vehicle can lead to your wheels wearing out much quicker than expected. Don’t forget to avoid harsh abrasives and brushes!
Wax and Polish When Needed
While you don’t have to do it every time you wash your wheels, it’s never a bad idea to wax and polish your rims every so often. Wax will help protect your wheels by providing a coating that will protect them from future damage, while polish will help remove scratches and blemishes that already exist on your wheels. Combining these two methods is the best way to ensure your wheels stand the test of time.
Be Careful When Parking
As is the case when seeking to preserve your vehicle’s tires, you can employ a few driving techniques to extend the life of your wheels. When parking your vehicle, it’s best to avoid curbs at all costs. The height of these small concrete barriers is just high enough to scrape the edges of your rims if you get too close. And whether you’re parking or driving, you should always avoid driving over steep curbs. If you hit them too hard, you could potentially break your wheel.
Keep Up with Rotations and Alignments
Although rotations and alignments are more important for your tires, not doing these maintenance routines will eventually have an effect on your wheels as well. An improperly worn tire can put unnecessary strain on your rims, which will build up pressure on the wheel over time. The same can be said for alignments; if your wheels are off-center, they can slowly deteriorate, making them more likely to fail someday in the future.
What to Do When Their Time Has Come
It’s worth noting that even if you closely follow each of these tips for extending the lifespan of your tires and wheels, the day will come when you’ll need to replace them. When that happens, we hope that you come to WheelerShip to buy new ones. We have a wide selection of wheels, tires, and accessories and can offer car wheel replacements for the most popular cars on the road today.