Getting The Right Tires For Your Car
Don’t Mess With Success
If you like how your car rides and handles, match exactly the tires already on your car. The tire company spent about $750,000 to develop a combination that meets your expectations. Why change?
Something Else
If you’re satisfied with your current car/tire combination, but the exact replacements are too expensive or not available, find what other tires were original equipment on your car. Car manufacturers normally have at least two tire suppliers for each model and the tires are usually very similar. Maybe the other brand is on sale.
Which Season?
For performance-oriented drivers unhappy with their car’s dry or wet grip, it’s easy to make a huge improvement: Switch from the all-season rubber now on your car to high- (or even ultra-high-) performance summer tires. All-season tires give up wet and dry traction in exchange for enhanced mobility in snow. An otherwise equal all-season tire has less grip—dry or wet—than its summer-tire counterpart. Some use the term “three-season” rather than “summer.” It’s more accurate.
Accidental Performance Buyer
Are you a comfort-oriented driver who wound up with a car riding on large-diameter wheels and spine-pounding low-profile rubber? Or maybe the pothole-plagued roads in your area have caused bent wheels and damaged tires. If so, consider purchasing smaller-diameter wheels and installing higher-profile tires. With help from a tire dealer or a “tire size conversion calculator” found on the Internet, you can select a tire that maintains the same overall diameter but has a taller sidewall: A 225/55R17 and a 225/50R18 have virtually the same diameter, but the former’s sidewall is almost a half-inch taller. If a lower trim level of your car came with smaller-diameter wheels, it should be simple to go from, say, 18-inchers to 17s.
Switch Category
If you’d like to make a small improvement, select tires from a different category. Switching from, for instance, a “touring” tire to a “performance” tire will firm up the ride, enhance steering feel and, likely, improve grip. Visit the websites of the tire manufacturers and mail-order tire dealers to find the category of your current tires, as well as possible replacements.
Master Garage is proud to carry and offer tires from:
When is Your Car Ready For an Oil Change?
The most important service you can perform to maintain your vehicle is an automotive oil change. Engine oil is the life blood of your vehicle, and if changed on a regular three thousand mile interval, it will keep your automobiles engine running for years. While oil keeps things lubricated, the oil filter keeps out the impurities, so the oil filter needs to be changed at every interval. If you plan to perform an oil change on your own, you will need the correct auto repair manual. Always consult your repair manual for proper oil quantity, oil weight, and the proper oil filter when performing an automotive oil change.
Most automotive manufacturers will suggest that you do an automotive oil change between five thousand and seventy five hundred miles, but I would only recommend that interval for synthetic oil. The maintenance schedules that they publish have two options, standard and extreme.
Most consumers think that the standard schedule is fine no matter where you live, but 75% of the world lives in the extreme, hot,cold,city driving,etc! Extreame heat as well as extreame cold, will break down engine oil viscosity and cause it to loose its lubricating properties. So lets stick to an automotive oil change every three thousand miles. Visit our site for advice on every other department of auto repair.
How to Tell Your Car or Truck Needs a Break Job
Your car or truck needs a brake job when your brake linings are worn down to the minimum acceptable thickness specified by the vehicle manufacturer or the applicable state agency in areas that set their own requirements. The only way to determine if new linings are required, therefore, is to inspect the brakes.
You may also need a brake job if you’re having brake problems such as grabbing, pulling, low or soft pedal, pedal vibration, noise, etc., or if some component in your brake system has failed. But if the problem is isolated to only one component, there’s no need to replace other parts that are still in perfectly good working order.
There is no specific mileage interval at which the brakes need to be relined because brake wear varies depending on how the vehicle is driven, the braking habits of the driver, the weight of the vehicle, the design of the brake system and a dozen other variables. A set of brake linings that last 70,000 miles or more on a car driven mostly on the highway may last only 30,000 or 40,000 miles on the same vehicle that is driven mostly in stop-and-go city traffic.