Checking Car Tire Tread Wear

Video Transcript

Hi this is Jeff Wong with Expert Village and today we're going to learn the basics of maintaining your vehicle. In this next section we're going to be looking at the tire and looking at the tread wear and how it relates to the alignment of the car. So if you look here you can see a pretty new tire. If you take note, inside the tire there are slightly raised bumps both in the center and along the edge of the tire. These are the tire wear marks. When these wear marks are reached, when the tire is worn down to these marks the tire is close to being replaced. Now, if your tire does not have these wear marks and you want to check a section of the tire that doesn't have these marks available for the correct depth, you can use a penny. Now if you take the penny and you notice the top of the hairline of Abraham Lincoln on the penny, you can take the penny and turn it upside down and put it inside the tread. Now if the tread is shallower than the gap from the edge of the penny, the Abraham Lincoln's head the tread has been worn down too much and the tire probably needs to be replaced. So you can see along the inside of this tire that some of the tread is shallower than this gap on the penny but towards the center of the tire there is still plenty of tread left. So if you see wear along the inside and the outside of the tire, but very little wear along the inside, your tire may be under inflated causing the inside to sink or be pushed into the tire. Now, if you only see heavy wear along the middle of the tire, but the outside of the tire's are relatively unworn. You tire may be over inflated or have too much air in it. So you may need to adjust your tire pressure accordingly. Now if you tread wear is heavy on either the inside or the outside or may be one corner of your vehicle on only one tire or may be just the front or may be just the rear tires, you may want to bring your car in and have the alignment checked.

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