Taking Care Of Your Tires

You want to do your part to make sure your car is in good working order. Your tires are just one of many systems you need to watch and care for. While there isn't much maintenance involved with tire care, you may be surprised to learn that there is some. Here are some thigs you should be aware of regarding tire care:

Wash your tires correctly - When you wash your car, you will also want to make sure the tires look nice and clean. However, you want to be careful with regards to the products you use on the tires. Keep in mind, even though tires are durable and weather resistant, applying certain kinds of chemicals to them directly often can cause a breakdown in the rubber and leave them more prone to problems. It's best to wash them using water and liquid dish soap and then rinse the soap off well. If you want to shine them up, you can purchase products intended for this purpose that won't cause that breakdown.

Move your car regularly – If you aren't driving your car for a good period of time, then you want to move it around a bit. Not only will starting it up regularly help keep the battery charged, but moving it at least a quarter rotation of the tires can prevent them from becoming misshapen which can lead to them blowing out when you go to drive the car again.

Keep your tires protected with shade – If you always park your car in one spot and the sun happens to beat down on it there every day, you want to get tire covers to put on those two tires. Otherwise, the constant and direct heat from the sun can cause your tires to become brittle. Another way to avoid this from happening would be to pull the car in forward one day and then pull it in backward the next. Continue on with this parking schedule so the same tires aren't taking on all of that extreme heat every single day.

Don't hit curbs – Some people can be quite careless when it comes to running over curbs. If you do this hard enough, or frequently enough it can damage both the tires and the rims they are on. If there are areas that you know you struggle with, it may be worth it for you to find somewhere completely different to park.

Contact a tire shop, like Jensen Tire & Auto, for more help.