SUVs are great and safe vehicles, but they are only as safe as the safety of their tires. If you don’t have a good set of tires mounted on your SUV, you might risk being in accidents more frequently. It is essential that you check the tread depth to ensure that its key properties associated with tread depth are intact. When the threshold value goes below 5/32 inches, you lose a lot of the tires’ important properties. These include braking distance, grip, and ability to prevent hydroplaning. It is therefore important that you check your tread depth and preferably also monitor the decrease of depth. The easiest way to measure the depth, if the tires don’t have Nokian Tyres’ patented Driver Safety Indicator (DSI) where you can read it from the tread, is by using a coin and push the coin into the groove and measure how far in you can insert it. If the difference between the front and the rear tires is big in terms of groove depth, you should rotate the position of the tires so that you can balance out any difference in wear. The general rule of thumb is that a difference of around 5/64 inches warrants a rotation.
When you go below 5/32 inches, you should purchase a new set of SUV all-season tires so that you can drive safely. You should always try to purchase four new tires simultaneously as if you only change two tires; then, you will have an uneven grip between the front and the rear of the SUV, which will cause the SUV to over or understeer. This is why rotation becomes so important to ensure that your tires will wear out evenly. It is commonly done without noticing it if you let your tire service station change tires for you between all-season and winter tires. They will tend to mark them before storage and ensure that they are rotated when used the next time.
Hybrid SUVs are heavier and have higher wear, so it is even more important that you check the tread depth and make sure that you get a premium set that is recommended for hybrid SUVs when you purchase the tires. The dimension will be larger than when you get a set of all-season tires for a passenger car.
To stay out of accidents, you need to have good premium tires, and you need to make sure that you maintain proper and balance out differences in wear by rotating the tires. This will make the tires last a long time. An important part of your maintenance is a visual inspection of the tires to ensure no cuts or cracks. Then you will need to check the tire pressure to ensure that you have the correct tire pressure, which is recommended. Low pressure will lead to higher tire wear and also contribute to higher fuel consumption. Not checking the tire pressure can become expensive negligence.
For more information regarding SUV all-season tires, visit: https://www.nokiantires.com/