Adulting Decrypted
We prepare young adults to be independent powerhouses for life.--Who We Are: The Adulting Decrypted team is composed of a Dad and his three sons: Roscoe(Dad - age redacted), Ashton(22), Gene(18), and Gideon(14). How We Started: As a family we have always tried to have at least one meal together daily. The meal that typically ends up being is dinner. One night in particular near the beginning of the COVID pandemic, our conversation started with Roscoe mentioning that he had recently read a news article stating that an Ivy League college was offering “Adulting,” classes. These classes were being offered in the hopes that they might be able to educate students who were struggling with common “Adult” tasks. It didn't make sense to us that someone would have to enroll in an Ivy League school to learn things that nearly every person has to deal with daily. To us it seemed that things like shopping, laundry, mental health, communication, taxes, loans, and so much more should be basic knowledge before taking on the substantial challenges of modern life. Eventually the idea was floated that there should be a podcast that can be accessed for free that would help people gain insight into these things that we thought we knew fairly well. Since COVID-19 had caused unemployment and school schedule changes for all of us we thought that there could be no better thing than for us to take on this challenge. Less than a month later, after several planning meetings and countless hours of research, we had recorded and uploaded our first episode.
Adulting Decrypted
"Hey Dad, When Do I Need New Tires?" – A Practical Guide to Tread, Safety & Smart Buying
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Is it time to replace your tires, or can you squeeze out a few more miles? In this episode, we answer the classic question: "Hey Dad, when should I get new tires?" Using the simple penny test (while we still have pennies!), we dive into how to check tread depth, spot dangerous wear patterns, and avoid getting talked into a premature replacement. We talk about:
- What uneven wear, bubbles, and exposed belts mean
- Why not all vehicles (or drivers) need top-tier tires
- Whether extended warranties are worth it
- The smart way to shop for tires on a budget
Whether you're driving a college beater or logging highway miles weekly, this episode gives you the knowledge to make the right call—on your own terms.
Hey dad, when should I get new tires? If you asked how to find out if you should replace your tires or not. Today I grabbed a penny. You need to use them now while they're still available in the us I guess they're gonna stop printing them. But a quick test to do is to see how deep your treads are.
You can go to any tire shop and they could run it as well, more officially. But if you're just trying to figure out do I have enough tread, take Abraham's Lincoln head. Put 'em in there. As you can see, we're starting to see his headline top of his head. These tires are about ready to be replaced, but what's interesting is if you run to the back of these, 'cause I've rotated them pretty good, but not perfect, and they wear a little bit different.
So make sure that you are rotating your tires If you look at the backs, ooh, he is actually close there too. But out here it gets very dangerous and so. One thing is the tire depth changes based on where the tire's at on the car and the distance in and out of the tires. I wanted to show you a bad couple bad tires for sure, and I'm gonna just throw it on the quad.
Look at the back of these quad tires. See how these are bald? Right there in the middle. That's getting a little bit dangerous. Wouldn't drive it on the highway. And then the other thing to look for is any uneven pattern or uneven wear. Some new tires look like, look at that. Look how deep he is in there.
You can, yeah, he's, these are brand new tires, rightfully so. A couple other things to keep an eye out as uneven where. Bubbles in your tires. That can be a bad thing, meaning the sidewall's kind of got a notch or a bubble in it. That's definitely something that you need to get taken care of. Anytime you're seeing belts metal belts or other oddities in your car, definitely time to get your tires replaced.
The other thing is make sure to turn your tires left and right on a car in this truck. We can zoom back in there and see Pretty easy the tread all the way through. We can kind of tell where the tire's at, but on a lower profile car like we have over here, it gets a little bit harder to get in there and get back in there and look at 'em, you know, so you can just get in, turn your car on, turn the wheel left, right.
I have noticed some card shops that they will re encourage you to change your tire too early, go in and measure 'em, and they're less than two 30 seconds. Definitely start getting 'em replaced. Four 30 seconds, you're getting on that iffy, that's obviously thicker. That's where you've got that time to start looking for the best deal.
Look for opportunities to buy, tires to look at is how far you drive. If you're driving five, 10,000 miles a year, you probably don't need the top end tire. If you don't do a lot of freeway driving, don't need a top end tire. If you've got a college car, hey, as long as it's not, you know, all wheel drive, go ahead and replace two of the four.
Like on a pickup truck, I could replace two tires at a time and be okay. All wheel drives get a little bit funny 'cause of the way they wear and the tread patterns. So be aware of that. The other thing is. Gotta go back, I go back and forth on the extended warranty. I'm not necessarily a fan of an extended warranty, but I have utilized it sometimes.
So once again, if, if it's a college car, buy as cheap as possible, just try and keep it running and, and get some tires on there. Gene, you do a lot of highway driving up back and forth from Southern Utah to Salt Lake. Yeah, I'd to keep good tires on there. And right now you have great tires, so thanks for asking.
If you have any more questions, throw 'em in the comments below. Reach out to me. Happy to show you If you have any thoughts, if you sell tires or you know more about tires, let us know. Keep in mind, always check your tire pressure before a big trip. And really, there's a lot of tire shops you can pull in that'll just do a free air check for you.
At the same time, they're gonna check your tire. But remember, you're the buyer. You get to decide when do I want new tires? When do I need new tires? And how much tire can I afford? Lots of information online. So when do you need new tires? Lot of decisions. Up to you. Good luck and try and make the best decision possible.
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