At what level of tire cracking must replacement be done?
2 Answers
Tires must be replaced when the remaining groove depth of the tread is below 1.6 millimeters. Here are some methods to protect your tires: 1. Avoid hitting curbs and falling into potholes. Some car owners have a rather aggressive parking style, preferring to park with their vehicles straddling the curb. During this process, the tires are subjected to compression, which can easily cause the sidewall cords to break, leading to tire bulges. 2. Avoid scraping the tire sidewalls. Often, sidewall scrapes occur unintentionally when parking near the curb or due to driver distraction. The sidewalls are the weakest part of the tire, and severe wear can also cause bulges, increasing the risk of a blowout. Therefore, when parking near the curb, drivers should pay attention to the distance between the vehicle and the curb to avoid scraping the sidewalls. 3. Do not reduce tire pressure in summer. Many car owners mistakenly believe that reducing tire pressure in summer can prevent blowouts due to high temperatures. However, this increases the contact area between the tire and the ground, raises friction, accelerates tire wear, and causes the tire temperature to rise more quickly, making blowouts more likely. Therefore, maintaining normal tire pressure in summer is still essential.
I've been driving trucks for twenty years, and tire cracking depends on the specific situation. The most dangerous is sidewall cracking - if the crack is thick enough to fit a credit card and you can see the cord layer, replace it immediately! Small cracks in the tire grooves aren't too bad, but if the tread block edges are cracked into jagged shapes, wet traction is gone. Actually, tires must be replaced after six years; rubber aging is like dried tree bark, and you never know when it might blow out on the highway. Once I saw a driver pushing his luck with tires cracked like spider webs, and the sidewall bulged and exploded - thankfully nothing bad happened. Remember, replacing a tire is always cheaper than repairing a car.
