How to buy the right tires for your car or truck — a step-by-step guide

Tire buying can be confusing, but these tips will help you buy the right tires for your car or truck

Tire buying tip #1 Buy the recommended tire size

Don’t assume the tires on your car are the factory recommended size. Instead, get the recommended size right off the factory tire sticker located in the driver’s door area. That size tire is the optimal size for your vehicle. Don’t second guess the engineers.

Rank your top tire priorities

Of course you want the lowest price tires. But are you willing to give up stopping traction to get the lowest price? Of course not. Here are the things to think about before you even begin to shop

Think about tire traction

Do you live in an area with snow and ice? If so, you’ll want tires with the best snow and ice traction rating. You might even consider buying a set of winter/snow tires and another set of all-season tires.

If you live in a hot climate with little rain, summer tires make less noise, provide a smoother ride and offer better traction than all-season tires. Then again, if you’re outfitted with summer tires and get occasional winter icing, driving with summer provide almost no traction or stopping power.

Think about tire noise

The more aggressive the tread and the bigger the tread block voids, the more noise the tire makes, especially at highway speeds. If you do a lot of highway driving, the drone caused by aggressive all-season tires can be quite annoying. But if you only do city driving, getting better traction and stopping power may be worth putting up with occasional tire noise when you’re on the highway.

How long do you want these tires to last?

As long as possible? Ah not so fast. That makes sense if you’re putting new tires on a fairly new car or truck. But if you’re buying tires for an older vehicle, do you really need tires to last 60,000 miles? Will you have that vehicle that long? Generally speaking, you’ll spend more for tires with better tread life ratings.

How important is ride comfort?

Just like the tire noise issue, tire with an aggressive tread pattern tend to have a rougher/stiffer ride. If you take long car trips, make sure you buy a tire that has good comfort ratings.

How are tires rated?

The U.S. Department of Transportation mandates tire testing to determine a tire’s traction, temperature and tread wear ratings.

What does the tire temperature rating mean?

Tires flex when driving and that flex creates heat. The tire must dissipate that heat to protect the integrity of the rubber and internal belts. A tire’s temperature rating, on a scale from A thru C, tells you how well it does that. Unless you’re planning on racing, this rating really doesn’t mean much to consumers. In other words, all other things being equal, you wouldn’t choose a tire just because it has a better temperature rating.

What does the tire traction rating mean?

In simple terms, this tells you how well the tire performs on wet pavement. The ratings are AA, A, B, C. “AA” is obviously the best and “C” is the worst. You’ll find “AA” on most performance tires, but you’ll also pay a premium for that rating.

What does the tread wear rating mean?

This one can be confusing because it compares tread wear to a test track tire. The test track tire is rated 100, so a tire with a 400 tread wear rating is supposed to mean that it will last 4 times longer than the test tire. But the test tire isn’t run until it’s fully worn out. The tire manufacturer then uses their own formula to extrapolate how long each tire will last.

Since each tire maker uses their own formula, you can’t compare tread wear rating between brands. You can only use it to compare estimate tread life within the same tire brand.

How to check tire reviews

TireRack.com conducts its own tire tests and posts the results online. Plus, it posts actually customer tire reviews.

Where to buy new tires?

See this post for really good information on the best place to buy tires.

©, 2023 Rick Muscoplat

Posted on July 10, 2023 by Rick Muscoplat