Why Tire Care Is Important

Tire care is important because it can reduce your cost per mile. Air pressure maintenance can improve the miles that the money you spend on tires and fuel and even your truck gets you. As an illustration, pedal a bicycle around the block (or to the mail box and back, if you’re from the country) with the bicycle tires at 30 PSI, then deflate the tires 10 pounds and try again. Unlike the muscles in your legs, your truck’s engine must be rebuilt in a shop.

If hitting all 18 with an air gauge every morning is not something you leap out of bed to accomplish, consider Murphy’s Law, or something scientists call the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics: The tendency of ordered systems to become disordered. By osmosis, your truck tires are seeping air out, as much as 3 PSI/month. This seepage could be halved by filling with Nitrogen. We still use compressed atmosphere.

Some old timers have suggested that at least walking all the way around the truck and looking at each tire from an erect posture can be a “Why not?” practice as much as checking the truck’s oil. Tires that have been run underinflated may look different in the way the tread wears. In extreme cases there will be a ring of darkened rubber high on the sidewall.

Tire care can also be how you drive. Speed and hard cornering create friction which causes heat, which can cook tread away, just like the heat from being ran underinflated. Overinflated tires can be more likely to be destroyed on impact with curbs or potholes
too.

The money you spend on tires can be reduced as well by selecting the correct “tool” for the job. Certain first tier brands target user needs with laser focus with remarkable results. Some products that are designed to carry coast to coast will not out-last others that are designed to perform well doing two dozen stops in a day, and vice versa. One consultant has observed a fleet getting three times as many miles before wear out simply by changing the make and series of tires in their delivery fleet.

Most people don’t drive or own a truck for a hobby, but instead it’s their living, a way for them to pay the bills. At the top of that list is the truck payment, and then the fuel, and then the tires. Maintaining the air pressure in your truck’s tires can reduce the engine rebuild interval by years, fuel consumed by gallons/day, and quantity of tires purchased.

Time is money and swinging by our French Camp or Modesto Service Departments for free air pressure maintenance at least once every three months will be worth the investment. Tell Scott or John or Victor that you saw on the website that we don’t charge for air!

Thanks for reading.

2019-02-22T22:06:22+00:00 December 7th, 2017|