Cars and Tires: Buy the Best Car tires for You – Tire Ratings and Types

The tire business is competitive, with many different companies competing to provide you with what they say are the best car tires. However, cars and tires must be matched carefully together to reflect your vehicle, its performance characteristics, and the driving conditions that you face. The tires you buy to drive in the desert will definitely have different requirements than the tires that you need if you drive in snow-covered mountain passes. Each individual type of tire has its own labels and indicators to help you know that you are getting exactly what you need for your car and driving habits.

The Uniform Tire Quality Grading System (UTQGS) is required by the U.S. Federal government on all tires sold. It consists of three components, treadwear, traction, and temperature. The treadwear rating is a number, and higher numbers should give you longer tire life. A tire with a treadwear rating of 500 will be expected to last twice as long as a tire with a treadwear rating of 250.

Traction is rated using the UTQGS with a letter code. Higher traction-rated tires are expected to stop quicker with less slippage on wet pavement. Ratings are, from highest to lowest, “AA”, “A”, “B”, and “C.” Traction ratings refer only to wet-pavement stops, and are not an indication of the tires performance in mud, snow, or other low-traction conditions.

Temperature ratings refer to a tires ability to dissipate heat under normal operating conditions. The designations are listed from “A” to “C,” with “C” rated tires meeting the government's minimum standards for temperature dissipation and resistance. An “A” rated tire will run cooler than a “C” rated tire, but it does not mean that the “C” rated tire is unsafe.

Tires can also be rated as “all season” or “mud and snow.” These designations are generally stamped on the side of the tire, and reflect how well the tire may perform in adverse conditions. In most cases, all-season tires work fine when driving on the road in snow. If you drive in an area where the roads are not as well maintained, you may choose to use a true snow tire. The best snow tires are made of a softer rubber compound. This softer compound will give better traction on cold roads, but will wear much more rapidly on dry roads, particularly as the weather gets warmer.

Some snow tires are also equipped with metal pieces called studs in the tread to provide increased traction. Studded snow tires are desirable if you drive on hard-packed snow or ice regularly, as the studs dig in to the hard, slippery surface increasing your traction. In most cold weather states, studded snow tires may only be able to be used on a vehicle during the colder part of the year to prevent damage to public streets.

Some tire dealers use tread wear warranties to offer an indication of how many miles the tire will last before the tread wears out completely. While this may seem like a good way for the tire dealer to stand behind his product, tread wear warranties have little meaning when it comes to buying the best tires for your car. In fact, these warranties may be nothing more than a ploy to get you back to the same store to purchase tires again.

For example, if your tires have a 50,000 mile tread wear warranty, and they wear out in 35,000 miles, The tire store will not replace your tires free of charge. The dealer will pro-rate the tire warranty by calculating the percentage of life that you received from the tire. In this example, you received 70 percent of the expected life of the tire, and lost out on 30 percent of the life that you should have received. So, you will have to pay 70 percent of the price of the new tires that will be installed. This pro-rated amount usually refers to today's price as well, not what you originally paid for the tires.

“So that is not so bad,” you think. I still get a 30 percent discount. But what if the tires that you have replaced under the warranty cost you $200 each, and have a treadwear rating of 200. What if you could have bought tires from another dealership for $250.00 each, with a treadwear rating of 400, but didn't offer a tire tread wear warranty? The more expensive tire without the warranty is expected to last twice as long as the less expensive tire with the warranty. Your cost per mile is likely to be much less with the more expensive tire. In addition, the tire rated higher in treadwear is probably rated higher in other areas as well, which means that it generally going to be a safer tire as well.

While buying the best car tires is not as simple as some people may think, knowing exactly what you are looking for will make the process much easier. It will also keep you and your family safer as you drive on the open road.