Tire Care

Make Your Tires Last Longer with the PETRA Method (Pressure, Tread, Rotation, Alignment)

 Meredith explains how to extend tire life using her PETRA acronym: Pressure, Tread, Rotation, and Alignment. She covers how to find and check correct tire pressure (PSI), what the legal minimum for tire tread is and how to check it, and why tires need rotating. balancing, and alignment. The episode includes a “Cars I Love” segment highlighting the Mazda CX-5 as a sporty two-row SUV comparable in size to the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4.

00:00 Why Tires Wear Out (and How Petra Will Save You Money)
00:31 Meet Meredith + What PETRA Stands For
01:51 P = Pressure: TPMS Lights, PSI, and Finding the Right Number
04:47 Seasonal Pressure Changes: Winter Drop, Summer Overinflation
07:00 T = Tread: Legal Limits, Penny Test, and Wear Bars
08:51 Tire Age Matters: Reading the DOT Date Code
10:44 Cars I Love: Mazda CX-5 Quick Review
13:04 R = Rotation & Balance: When to Do It and Why It Helps
14:27 A = Alignment: Signs You’re Off + Pothole Damage
15:22 Spare Tires vs Run-Flats: Don’t Get Caught Unprepared
16:39 PETRA Recap + Final Tips, Reviews, and Sign-Off

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Transcript

Meredith 0:02

Like pretty much everything else in life. Tires are expensive. Nobody wants to have to spend their hard earned money on something as boring as tires for their car. I know I don't want to. So today we're gonna talk about how you can lengthen the life of your tires so that you have to buy them less often on women buying cars.

0:31

You are listening to women buying cars, and I'm your host Meredith Reynolds. I'm a former teacher turned used car dealer and I'm here to teach and empower you to walk into a car dealership with confidence and walk out with the car that's right for you.

Meredith 0:49

Hi there. Thanks for coming and joining me today. Here on Women Buying Cars. I'm Meredith, and I am so happy that you're here if you live in the Kansas City area. Or know someone who does come see me or tell them to come see me at Reynolds Automotive. I would love to help anyone out there find their next car, and I especially have a passion for helping women of course. But we sell plenty of cars to men as well, reynolds Automotive in the Kansas City suburb of Merriam. Today we're gonna talk all about tires, and I have come up with such a clever and cute little acronym to help us. The acronym is Petra. That stands for Pressure Tread Rotation and Alignment. I think I'm gonna copyright that because. It's a great acronym, Petra. Okay, so we're gonna talk all about how to take care of your tires so that you don't have to buy them as often. Starting with our acronym P in Petra. That stands for pressure. Pressure is the amount of air pressure in your tires. The pressure is measured in PSI or pounds per square inch. Most of us today have A-T-P-M-S light, TPMS monitor. In our car so that on our dashboard we get a notification if a tire is low. In most cars it's an exclamation point which freaks people out. Sometimes they think that's a check engine light, it's not. And some cars, it just straight out says TPMS. So you don't have to guess, which is lovely. You can also probably scroll through information in your dashboard to actually see which tires are low and what the pressure is for all four tires. Because modern cars have sensors that talk to the car and tell you how much pressure is in each tire. If you have an older car or the sensor has malfunctioned as one of mine has, or you just have a very bare bones car, you may not get that information. And in that case, you can keep track of the PSI, the pressure in your tires, the way we all used to do it. So a great thing to have on hand is a tire pressure gauge. A tire pressure gauge will tell you how much pressure's in your tires and you can buy one for less than $20. How do you know what the magic number is? How much pressure do you need in your tires? The place to look is inside the door on the driver's side. Open your driver's side door and look at the door jam. You should find a sticker that talks about tires. It will tell you the size of the tire that you need when you replace your tires, and it will also tell you the optimal tire pressure. It will say that this is the cold tire pressure, cold temperature, tire pressure. That doesn't mean cold is in frigid. It means not after you've driven a hundred miles and your tire has gotten hot from the road. So you will want to take the tire pressure when your car has not been driven yet, or it's been driven just a few miles at a slow speed. Okay? So you wanna check that against the number that is there on that sticker. If you can't find the sticker, you should also be able to find this information in the owner's manual. Lots of gas stations have air tanks that you can use to fill up your tire. I did read that you shouldn't rely on their gauges to tell you what the tire pressure is because it may not be accurate, which is probably true. I doubt anybody's out there servicing those very often, but at least it would give you a general idea and you could use it to get some pressure in your tire as needed. One thing about tire pressure is that once the temperature drops, the pressure will drop. You're not losing air in cold weather. The air that's in the tires is contracting or compressing. Air molecules when heated, speed up and spread out, and when they are cold, they condense. Okay, thank you to my high school chemistry teacher for. Whatever she did to help me remember that if you've ever taken a helium balloon outside in the winter, you'll see that the balloon slightly compresses and it gets a little wrinkled up. It's the same idea. The air is not leaving, it's just contracting. And so tire pressure monitors come on in the winter. That happens to us at our dealership. Suddenly the temperature drops in the fall and every car says that it needs air, which is not really a good look. But if you ever are shopping in cold weather, be understanding that that's probably all that it is. so you'll need to add air in the winter. Make sure you know what number you're trying to hit. What happens to that extra air When summer comes, you will lose about one PSI for every 10 degrees and. If you live in a climate like I do in Kansas City where we get very hot summers and very cold winters, that is a big drop. What happens then when summer rolls around to all that extra air you put in the tire? Well, it's possible your tires could be overinflated. You need to check them once the temperature starts getting hot, because an overinflated tire. Is bad for the car, just like an underinflated tire is. So same thing. Check your tire before you've driven it in the heat and see if you need to let out. A little bit of error. Probably not a ton, but a little bit. Under inflated tires and overinflated tires are both bad. They will both wear out more quickly, get poorer gas mileage, and possibly be unsafe. So you need to keep your tires at the correct. Pressure, give or take a little bit. Okay, so the T is tread the grooves that are on your tire. It's very important to have good tread because that is what grips the road so that you're not sliding all over the place The Department of Transportation says you legally cannot use a tire that has less than two 32nd 30 seconds. Two 30 seconds. Why don't they just say one 16th? Of an inch, two 30 seconds of an inch, which reduces down to one 16th. I don't know why they don't just do that, but anyway, it's the legal limit to find out if yours is two 30 seconds of an inch, you can take a penny, you can put Lincoln in headfirst in your tired groove. And if any part of his head is covered, you are still legally okay? If you can see his entire head, then you need new tires. Okay? That puts you below two 30 seconds that's not the only way to check though. Tires actually have tread wear indicators built in. So this is a small rubber nub. The ones on mine are rectangular molded into the tire, so it's just a piece of rubber that is raised in the groove. Okay, so the grooves that go the same direction as the tire that go all the way, the whole circumference of the tire, not grooves that come out sideways toward the sidewall, the main grooves. If you feel around in there, you will feel a little bump at some point. That is a tread wear indicator, and when your tire is, even with the tread wear indicator, you need new tires. Okay, so it is there for a reason. See if you can find it. Even if you have a lot of tread on your tires, if your tires are old, they need to be replaced anyway.. If you hardly ever drive and you've got tons of tread, but your tires are six years old, it's time to change them because the rubber can become dried out and crack, and you're more likely to get a blowout. So it's really important that you keep an eye on the age of your tires. What if you don't know the age of the tires? There's a way to find that out. Look at your tires, you will find the word DOT on the side of the tire that stands for Department of Transportation. After that, there will be some random letters and numbers that have something to do with the manufacturer, but the last four numbers. We will tell you when this tire was made. The first two numbers tell you the week, and the last two numbers tell you the year. So if yours says 0 4 23, your tires were made the fourth week, zero four. Of 20 23, 0 4, 23. Fourth week of 23, mine said 42nd week of 23, so that's the end of 2023. The 42nd week of 2023. 42, 23. Okay. So see if you can find that it starts with dot, it has some random letters and numbers, and then the last four minor kind of in a rectangular indentation so that they are separated from the others. Okay, so look at that. And yours, if it says 2020 or earlier, you need to replace your tires 'cause it's been six years or it's going on six years. Now it's time for your favorite segment. Cars I love the car I love. Today is the Mazda CX five A, Mazda CX five is a two row SUV. It is comparable to a Honda CRV or a Toyota RAV4. As far as size goes. Okay, so it is not huge. It would be great for a variety of people from teenagers to adults that don't have big families. The CX five is going to get good gas mileage, mid twenties in the city and low thirties on the highway. It is sportier than a CRV or a RAV4. It has more Pep Mazda's known for having a sportier performance, having a little more get up and go and being a little more fun to drive. I saw it, described as having a near luxury interior. We are not gonna call this a luxury car, but it is elevated, mazda CX five has a little bit more of an upscale feel, especially on the higher trim levels I like the CX five because it comes in some different colors. I've talked about this before. I look at white, black, and silver cars all day long. Oh, and gray, throw that in there. So I get excited when we have some light blue or a midnight blue. We even had one once that had red interior. It's not for everybody, but. It is striking. So kudos to Mazda for trying new things. It has a decent price point. And Mazda has really stepped up their game. As far as safety features, you're going to find a lot of safety features on a Mazda CX five, like lane departure warning, certainly blind spot monitor, lane keeping assist, crash detection, warning. So lots of great things. Another reason you might wanna put your teenager in one. So if you need a smallish SUV. With two rows, seats, five, with good gas mileage, and possibly some cute colors. You should consider the Mazda CX five. Now let's get back to talking about tires. All right, next Petra, PTR rotation. You hear about that? Get your tires balanced and rotated. What exactly does that mean? Why do you need to do it? Rotation is when they take the tire, all four tires off, and they put them in a different position, they rotate the tires around. This helps them wear more evenly, okay? Because four tires are not going to wear exactly the same. And if ti, your tires aren't wearing evenly, they are going to wear out too soon. So it's important to get them rotated. You're going to do that about every six to 8,000 miles. If you notice them wearing unevenly before 6,000 miles, then by all means get them rotated. And what I mean is if you notice that a tire is Getting more smooth or has a lot less tread in on one part, on maybe the inside or the outside. Or if you feel vibration while driving you need to get them rotated. this extends the life of your tires, but it also improves performance you also hear sometimes they're gonna balance and rotate the balance. They actually add weights on certain places on the wheels to balance out the load and again help with vibration so that's why you get a balance and rotate and you're all set. Alright. The A is for alignment. You need an alignment when. Your car pulls to the side. If you take your hands off the wheel, or if you notice the steering wheel is crooked, even though you're driving straight, or if when you turn the wheel doesn't kind of automatically turn back. You need an alignment. That means that your wheels are a little bit cockeyed. That can happen if you hit a big pothole or you hit maybe an animal in the road. It can knock it out of alignment. Another indication is if like I said earlier, if the outer edge of the tire is showing wear, it could indicate that you need an alignment. Again, keeping your car in alignment increases the tire life, increases fuel economy, increases the performance of your car. So it's a very important thing to do. One more little tidbit is that if you have a spare tire in the back, you need to be checking it from time to time too, because it can slowly lose air over time and nothing would be worse than having a flat tire only to find out that your spare is also flat. So check on your spare if you have one. Check the pressure. If it's a donut, it will not follow the same pressure as your tires 'cause it's a small tire. It will actually say on the side what the inflation should be. Many cars today don't come from the factory with a spare tire. Because there's an invention called run flat tires run flat tires have a very strong sidewall. And therefore if the tire is punctured, you can actually keep driving for up to 70 miles as long as you're going at about 50 miles an hour max. So it's a good idea when you go shopping for a used car to see if there is a spare tire. If there's not, it may be because there never was one. You can just easily look it up. Look up the year, make model with the word spare tire. See what it says. Okay, so there you go. Now you know some new things about tires. Remember Petra, check the pressure. Check your tread. Get a rotation and balance every six to 8,000 miles. Get an alignment as needed. If you can do all those things, you'll save money because you won't be buying tires as often and you're gonna get better gas mileage. Not to mention, your car will grip the road and keep you safe and do what it's supposed to do. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to come see me at Reynolds Automotive, and if you wouldn't mind giving me a five star review, I greatly appreciate it. I would love for you to follow my show. I would love for you to share my show because there's so many women out there that could benefit from this information. So send it on. Come back and see me next time. Happy driving.