Do you need to change two tires every time you replace them?
2 Answers
It is recommended to change two tires every time you replace them for your car. This helps to better distribute the vehicle's weight and ensures more uniform force distribution during dynamic balancing, thereby enhancing driving safety and reducing fuel consumption. Changing two tires at a time ensures that the tread patterns and wear levels on both sides are consistent, improving the vehicle's stability and safety during driving. Tires are circular elastic rubber products mounted on various vehicles or machinery, typically installed on metal rims. They support the vehicle body, absorb external shocks, maintain contact with the road surface, and ensure driving performance. Tires often operate under complex and demanding conditions, enduring various deformations, loads, forces, and temperature extremes during driving. Therefore, they must possess high load-bearing capacity, traction performance, and shock absorption capabilities.
As a seasoned driver with over 20 years of experience, I don't think it's always necessary to replace two tires at once, but it largely depends on the situation. If only one tire is damaged while the other three are still relatively new with just over 10,000 kilometers on the odometer and consistent tread depth, replacing just one tire of the same brand and model is perfectly acceptable—it saves money and hassle. However, most of the time tires wear evenly, and if the car has tens of thousands of kilometers on it with noticeable differences in tread patterns, replacing just one new tire can lead to imbalance between the left and right sides. This may cause the car to drift or have unstable braking, increasing the risk of accidents. For example, last week my front left tire blew out, but the other three were still in decent condition, so I replaced just the one. The next day on the highway, the car kept pulling to the right, which scared me into getting it checked immediately—it turned out the excessive wear on the old tires was the issue. So, for safety reasons, I generally recommend replacing two tires on the same side to ensure matching pressure and tread patterns. Regular tire rotation can help minimize such problems.
