Ultimate Tire Thread

[gman1868]

None of us are tire experts, so when it comes to maintenance or purchase it helps to have some tools to do your research. In this post, let's talk tire pressure.

Tire pressure specs are based upon a "cold" reading. What does that mean? It means when the tires have been at rest, in the shade, for enough time to match the ambient air temperature. Sitting in the sun or driving down the street raises the temperature and subsequently, the pressure in the tires. If you wait at least 8 hours you should be fine. What tire pressure should my car have when the tires are cold? All Tire Pressures, Models, Tire Types and more

How much does the ambient air temperature affect the tire pressure? An increase/decrease of 10 degrees equals an approximate 1PSI increase/decrease in temperature. As long as you make it a habit to monitor the pressure, you can catch it before it becomes an issue. Tire pressure and temperature

The pressure drop can become exacerbated by the fact that tire continually loses pressure due to permeation, a natural process where the air escapes through the molecules of the tire material. The tires can lose 1+PSI per month. So, you check the tires in July and they are 35PSI cold. Then you don't check them again until December. You live in a cold climate, so the average temp has dropped from 80 degrees to 20 degrees. As a result, your tires have lost at least 5 PSI over time and another 6 PSI due to change in temps. That's an 11 PSI drop, a dangerously low pressure of 24 PSI. Moral of the story? Check your pressure monthly and refill them accordingly.

 

[PittPa]

Fortunately Kia has made it easy with TPS. I've found them to be surprisingly accurate.

 

[BK42]

Also, going down in elevation (Denver to KC) you'll lose a few PSI.

 

[gman1868]

Need to buy new tires? That's never easy, especially considering that anyone who sells them have a built-in bias toward the brands they sell or any inventory that they are trying to move. It's made more difficult when going online to ask questions here on on facepoop. What you mostly get is highly subjective and biased opinions, and very short on facts.

What's left? The only reasonably subjective source are the reviews on Tire Rack. Why? Even though the reviews are still subjective, there are so many that you can get a good idea of which tires will work best for you. There are two things to look at:
- Ignore any positive reviews of less than 20-30,000 miles. Most tires work fairly well with under 10,000 miles so the report is meaningless.
- When looking at the comparison charts, start with the number of Miles Reported. If the tire has less than 1 million miles reported, it's probably too new to have enough data to justify the numbers.

Tire Crack, Rack is good for a number of things:
- Comparing tire ratings for your vehicle
- Looking up any tire some tire shop is trying to foist upon you
- Use their delivered price as a negotiation point when haggling with a local shop
- Use it to see what wheels will look like on your car
- Find your favorite tire and see if they have a size that's close enough to the OEM size and will fit your wheels

So, how does one do that??

We will start with searching by vehicle. Once you've entered the details for your Telluride (or any vehicle) you'll get a bazillion results. The best place to start is to compare your OEM tires (if they're a current model) to use them as a first comparison. I used the tires on my Telluride, the Michelin Primacy Tour A/S. To get there I filtered by Brand, Michelin. Then I found the tire on the list and opened the details in another tab/window. Then I scrolled down to the Ratings Charts and Reviews section. A the bottom are the written review, but we want to see how they compare to other tires in their category. Click the button "See Ratings Charts for All Tires in This Category". This opens the page Tire Ratings Charts for Grand Touring All-Season . On the right side of the chart you'll find the column "Miles Reported". You can see the Primacy Tour only has 421K reported, so it isn't as many as we'd like to see, but for some others, you can see they are in the millions. From that you can determine which tires would be the ones to consider.

Keep in mind, the ratings comparison chart only really works when comparing apples to apples, i.e. tires in the same category. It's less accurate when cross-comparing between different categories.

It becomes much more interesting if you want to look at tires from other categories. For examples, there are 52 categories of tires that fit the Telluride. The four general are Touring (what's OEM on the SX), Performance, All-Terrain, and Winter/Snow. Within each one of those categories there are sub-categories, and you can click the "?" icon next to each one for a description and average rating for each one. That will help you choose the category that you feel will work best for you. Sadly, Tire Rack no longer allows comparison of tires between sub-categories, so as the ancient knight in the movie "Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade" said, "you must choose wisely".

Another thing to consider. You see they don't have your favorite tire listed in search results. Mine, for here in Minnesota, is the Michelin Defender LTX M/S. I've used set of those with great success in both summer and winter, providing excellent wear, performance, and low noise. However, there isn't one that is an exact fit for the Telluride. So, looked at that model of tire and found one that's close enough, so that's what I'll probably buy when the factory tires wear out.

To get the closest size, you have to look at the specs of the OEM tire for RIM WIDTH RANGE, MEAS. RIM WIDTH, SECT. WIDTH, TREAD WIDTH, OVERALL DIAMETER, and REVS. PER MILE. Use those specs to compare to other tires to get one that matches or is real close. If you get a different size tire your speedometer will no longer be accurate.

Happy Tire Shopping!

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[gman1868]

What are your thoughts on tire buying and maintenance?

 

[acehawk]

I like the Michelin tires that came with my KT but I think I may switch to Hankook once new tires are needed.