How to choose the right tires for a car

10 important rules when buying tires

An article about how and which tires are best to purchase: 10 important tips and recommendations for the buyer. At the end of the article there is a video about how to choose tires and what you need to know when buying them.

The content of the article:

Wealth of choice
Buying Tips
Video about how to choose tires and what you need to know when buying them

The variety of tire manufacturers and brands can confuse any buyer, especially if this is the first time purchasing this important component for a car.

The situation is aggravated by the fact that the tires differ not only in the name of the manufacturer - they are actually very different. How to avoid mistakes and make the right purchase? Let's figure it out.

Wealth of choice

Tires are very diverse in their purpose. For driving in a dynamic sports style - some, for measured movement - others. Moreover, when choosing tires, you need to take into account the weather conditions in the area where the car will be used.

Summer tires can be used at temperatures above plus five degrees. They are divided into the following categories:

universal type tires;
tires for traveling on roads;
tires for driving on mud and rough terrain.

Universal tires are marked A/T. They perform well on clean asphalt and in mud. The downsides are driving noise, higher than with asphalt tires, and less stability on city asphalt.

Road tires are the most common option. Marking – N/T, N/R. They are distinguished by low noise and a high degree of road grip, but it is better not to use them in mud and off-road.

Mud tires are more suitable for off-road use. Their marking is M/T. On a clear road they are noisy, but cope well with mud and rough terrain.

Winter tires also have their own categories, depending on what type of winter the motorist expects:

Scandinavian studded;
Arctic;
European.

Scandinavian studded tires are designed for icy conditions. On “bare” asphalt, such tires are noisy, and it is not recommended to develop high speeds on them so that the spikes do not fly out.

Arctic tires , or “Velcro” as they are also called, are designed for harsh winter conditions and low temperatures. The treads of such tires are distinguished by a very dense pattern; their rubber is soft and retains its properties well at low temperatures.

European tires are designed for winter in the mild European climate (where their name comes from), where precipitation in the form of rain and wet snow prevails. They have well thought out drainage, but on icy or snowy roads, tires of this type are not the most convenient option.

All-season tires are good for short distances and low vehicle loads. They are inexpensive, but do not last long. The only plus is the ability to use them at any time of the year.

In addition to the above classification, tires are also distinguished:

low-profile – convenient for smooth roads in the city, but unsuitable for off-road;
Run Flat tires – for cars with tire pressure monitoring, allowing you to drive up to 150 km even on tires that have been punctured;
off-road – for rough terrain and clayey roads.

Tires are also distinguished by their pattern. He can be:

symmetrical directional - for high-speed sports driving, stable on wet roads;
symmetrical non-directional - inexpensive, most common in the city, but does not allow high speeds in winter;
asymmetrical directional - the most expensive option, which makes it possible to move at good speed on wet roads, but is characterized by the complexity of installation;
asymmetrical non-directional - a popular choice for driving on wet roads, characterized by good handling.

Buying Tips

As can be seen from the above classifications, the abundance of brands and varieties of tires can really confuse you. Therefore, when purchasing, it is better to use a number of useful tips.

1. Choose the right time to buy

It is best to plan the purchase of tires in advance - this is an opportunity not only to make a thoughtful choice, but also to save significant money.

The right time is also when manufacturers change their product lines. During this period, stores strive to get rid of previous models as quickly as possible, doing this with the help of large discounts. Sometimes the discount can reach half the original cost of the tires.

Finally, it is better to purchase tires in advance for the simple reason that during a last-minute purchase in stores, the required model and brand may simply not be available, and then you will have to buy something else, and even at exorbitant prices.

2. Analyze opinions and reviews

Having decided on any brand of tires, it would be useful to get acquainted with the reviews of motorists. And there is one important nuance here: the most valuable reviews will be from those motorists whose tires have lasted no less than a quarter of the declared service life.

Any tires will be perfect as long as they are new. But statistics indicate that most of the problems with rubber arise when its service life is a quarter or more exhausted. At this time, problems with balancing, uneven abrasion, aquaplaning, swelling on the tires, and noise when driving may appear.

Another important point is the brand of the car on which the tires are installed. For the buyer, the most useful will be reviews from owners of cars of the same brand. The modern assortment includes a wide range of tires that can be installed on almost any type of passenger car, from sports coupes to SUVs.

But on different types of cars such tires behave differently, so it is important to know what they are like when used on a car of a specific weight and power.

3. Average cost is not an indicator of durability

This advice is based on observations from recent years. Unfortunately, even manufacturers of high-quality tires have recently “lowered the bar” somewhat, and now the concept of “the most expensive tires” is not identical to the concept of “the most durable.”

Brand name manufacturers focus on the performance of their products rather than their durability. If earlier purchasing expensive tires meant purchasing them for a long time, today the emphasis has shifted: expensive tires have excellent characteristics that correspond to the stated data in the product data sheet, but at the same time, such tires do not have to last a long time.

4. Features of using the car

When choosing the type of tires, it is important to take into account the actual conditions in which the car is used.

When constantly using a car in city traffic and traffic jams, it makes no sense to purchase tires designed for the dynamic driving of a sports car - despite their beautiful appearance and excellent characteristics, such tires will “kill” in traffic jams very quickly.

5. Release date matters

Rubber is a material that changes over time. Even the best quality tires degrade over the years. Therefore, it is best to purchase recently produced products.

The shelf life of rubber largely depends on the conditions in which it is stored before sale and installation on a car. You should know that rubber tires do not tolerate ultraviolet radiation and sunlight, and storage conditions in store warehouses can be very, very different. Therefore, there is only one way out - try to purchase tires that have been stored there for a minimum time.

The tire release date can be seen on the side wall. Tires are marked with the year and week of manufacture (four-digit DOT code).

6. No used tires!

Tires are something that you should never buy used. If you have purchased a car, you must have enough money for its tires, otherwise you should not purchase it at all. While other components can still be purchased used, this is unacceptable with tires.

The reason for such a strict rule is that used tires are very difficult to value. The inner cord of the tire may be damaged, and this problem only appears when air under pressure is supplied to the tire. Used tires, as a rule, are sold without wheels, and you won’t be able to see the problem.

To be fair, it is worth saying that there are also good used tires, but this is the exception rather than the rule.

7. Don't pay too much attention to the brand

Modern production is such that not a single, even the most famous brand insures the consumer against low quality .

Even Nokian or Michelin have both excellent and not the best tires in their model line. Therefore, you should not become an ardent fan of the brand without paying attention to the features of various models.

8. Selection in store

The selected model must be carefully examined. An important characteristic is the sidewall of the tire. If it is thin, the car may experience additional instability on the highway. And an excessively soft wall will be excessively vulnerable to lateral impacts on the tire.

9. The choice of tires depends on the intensity of use of the car

If a driver operates a car with low intensity, he should not purchase tires that claim to have a long service life. The reason for this warning is that rubber loses its properties over the years. Therefore, it may turn out that a lot of money was paid for the protectors, the service life has not yet been exhausted, and the quality is already beginning to rapidly deteriorate.

With a small annual mileage, it is better to purchase cheaper tires that will “cope” with the mileage, but during this time they will not have time to lose the properties of the material.

10. Winter tires

Living in regions with harsh winters requires a special approach to choosing “winter” tires. You should not try to save money by purchasing “all-season” tires: such savings can be expensive. All-season tires are only good for warm climates without snow and ice, and then they require frequent replacement.

The choice of tires is an issue that should not be approached lightly , because not only driving comfort, but also safety on the road depends on how well the treads are selected.

Video about how to choose tires and what you need to know when buying them:

How to choose the right tires for your car

We have already figured out how to choose the right wheels for a car. Now our task is to select tires. There are probably as many markings on the sidewall of tires as there are parameters on the rim, but in general choosing a tire is a little easier. Let's find out what numbers like “185/70 R14 88H” mean and how to deal with them.

You need to choose the right tire for a wheel with the specified parameters or for a specific car.

When choosing tires, you need to consider the following parameters:

seasonality;
tread type;
type of tire design - tubed or tubeless;
type of cord construction;
mounting (or landing) diameter;
tire width;
profile height;
load index;
speed index.

As in the case of choosing wheels, let’s make a reservation right away: if at this stage you no longer want to understand numbers and indices, you can simply use the tire calculator of any large online store or online service, where you can instantly select tires by indicating the model of your car or characteristics of existing disks.

However, if you continue reading, then it has already become clear to you that in fact the above list of parameters is quickly reduced to two or three points, since most of them are obvious or subjective characteristics. Let's go in order.

Seasonality is an obvious parameter: at the time of choosing tires, you understand perfectly well whether you need winter or summer tires. The issue of choosing so-called “all-season” tires and its applicability in conditions of year-round use is a topic for a separate discussion, as is the choice of mud or “universal” tires. Here it is only worth saying that winter tires must be marked with the “snowflake” icon or the letters “M+S” or “MS”.

In general, the tread pattern can be symmetrical or asymmetrical, as well as directional or non-directional. Symmetrical non-directional tread is the simplest basic type of tread: these tires are the most common and inexpensive. The directionality of the tread primarily increases its ability to effectively drain water from the contact patch - this reduces the risk of aquaplaning . Well, the asymmetrical tread pattern is designed to combine good drainage and directional stability. The issue of choosing a projector pattern also deserves a separate discussion.

By design, tires are designed for use with or without a tube. However, in modern conditions, the question of choosing a tire design is almost predetermined: almost all modern passenger tires are tubeless. Such tires are marked with the inscription “Tubeless” (which means “tubeless”) or “TL”.

The type of cord construction – the strength part of the tire, its “skeleton” – is also a characteristic that does not require much attention when choosing modern tires: almost all of them today are radial. This fact is indicated by the very letter “R” in the tire marking: for example, the mark “185/70 R 14 88 H” means that this is a radial tire with a 14-inch bore diameter, and not a 14-inch “radius,” as is often mistakenly said consider.

This is also a simple parameter if you already have wheels for which you are choosing tires: the seat diameter of the tire must match the diameter of the wheel. If you choose wheels along with tires, you need to check in the instruction manual which diameter wheels are acceptable for use on your model, and only then select tires of the same size for them.

Tire width is the first digital index reflected in the tire marking. It is indicated in millimeters: the 185/70 R 14 tire has a width of 185 millimeters. This is perhaps the first parameter on our list, which can vary when choosing a tire for a particular wheel or car.

The point here is that the rim can also have different widths, and the tire must fit correctly on the rim. A tire that is too narrow will sit “like a house” on the rim, which is unacceptable due to the high risk of spontaneous dismounting, and a tire that is too wide will “mushroom”, which is also unacceptable. Some tuning trends like stance consider the “house” landing to be beautiful and make it a separate style element , but from the point of view of civilian use it is not justified and incorrect.

Each car model has several options for wheel diameter and tire size suitable for use. All these options, recommended by the manufacturer, are listed in the car's operating manual: it is from this data that you should choose. In turn, a rim of a certain width has several acceptable tire options. Here the choice should be made depending on the desired characteristics.

Firstly, wider tires usually provide a larger contact patch with the road and, accordingly, better grip. Secondly, given the same diameter, tires with a larger width have a smaller profile - we’ll talk about it a little lower. Thirdly, wider tires have more weight, which will slightly affect the car's dynamics and fuel consumption. Well, fourthly, as the width of the tires increases, their tendency to hydroplaning . In addition, tires of different widths have different final costs - as a rule, you will have to pay a few extra hundred rubles for additional millimeters. Thus, the width of the tires must be selected taking into account the range allowed by the manufacturer and the desired characteristics.

The profile height, or series, is the second index reflected in the tire marking. It is indicated as a percentage of the tire width: that is, it is the ratio of the profile height to the width as a percentage. For example, a 185/70 R 14 88 H tire has a profile height of 70% of its width. It’s easy to calculate the height in millimeters: you need to multiply the width by the profile and divide by 100 - for our tires this figure is 129.5 millimeters.

The profile height affects the characteristics of the tire. First, the higher profile provides better comfort and puncture resistance. Lower profile tires, therefore, better transfer the road profile to the suspension and body, and are also more prone to damage when hit by defects in the road surface. Secondly, a lower profile provides better handling, and a higher one, on the contrary, provides greater “rollability” of the car. Thirdly, as mentioned above, given the same diameter, tires with a larger width have a smaller profile - this must be taken into account when choosing in accordance with the desired characteristics.

Load index is a parameter that reflects the maximum permissible load on a tire during operation. It is indicated by a digital index, indicated after the geometric parameters of the tire: for example, our conventional tire 185/70 R 14 88 H has a load index of 88. The decoding of the index can be found in the table provided by the tire manufacturer - in our case, the index 88 means a permissible load of 560 kilograms. When choosing tires, it is worth considering that the maximum permissible weight of the car, accordingly, should not exceed the maximum load multiplied by 4 - the number of tires on the car.

Speed index is a parameter that reflects the maximum permissible speed at which the tire maintains its performance characteristics. This is a letter index, the decoding of which also needs to be clarified in the table provided by the manufacturer. Tires of the same diameter can have different speed indexes depending on other parameters - width, profile, rubber compound composition and, accordingly, price. If the parameter of the maximum permissible operating speed is important to you, then you need to choose tires in a high price category with the best consumer qualities.