At one point tires being imported from China lacked a safety feature that prevents the tire tread from separating. This cased a recall or 450,000 tires. Heat is the enemy of any tire, and with summer heat combined with high levels of summer travel, we recommend that consumers do the following:
-
Inspect your tires. Replace any worn out tire as well as any tire with a bulge, crack, or cut. We’d even suggest replacing all four if they’re nearly worn out. This keeps the best tread on all four corners of your car instead of only one. Check the wear across the tire’s tread and determine if it is wearing evenly or wearing more on one side than the other. Uneven wear could be a telltale sign of wheel misalignment, suspension damage, or wrong inflation pressure. Have the vehicle serviced.
-
Check the inflation pressure. It is important to do this routinely, preferably monthly. The correct inflation pressure is on a tire information placard found on the driver’s door jamb. Adjust the inflation pressure when the tires are cold or when the car has been parked for three or more hours.
-
Watch the load capacity. Adhere to the vehicle load capacity recommended on the tire information placard. Too high a load and/or low pressure will overstress a tire and could lead to failure.
-
Check your steering. Should you experience a vibration or steering pull, stop and inspect the tires, and replace a tire with the spare if needed. If you can not determined a tire abnormality, then either drive or have the car towed to a service center immediately. Always avoid highway speed travel on the way to the service center.
