A bright red car, a metallic blue car and a taxi painted the color of a highlighter will normally leave the factory with exactly the same footwear. Black tires. The color seems so inevitable
Whitewall tires have become visual shorthand for a particular kind of motoring glamour. Put them on a long Cadillac with chrome bumpers, tailfins and enough hood to host a family picnic, and the pi
New tires arrive covered in information. Numbers identify their size, load capacity, speed rating and date of manufacture. Then, among all that serious molded lettering, someone appears to have atta
The car feels perfectly normal around town. At 35 mph, nothing rattles. At 50, there may be the faintest tremor. Reach highway speed and the steering wheel begins a steady dance between the driver&rsq
The tires were set perfectly that morning. Then, after a long stretch of highway, the pressure display shows every one of them sitting several pounds higher. Out comes the gauge. Sure enough, the d
The tire-pressure warning light is not one of the dashboard’s more mysterious creations. It looks like a sagging tire with an exclamation mark inside, which is a fairly direct way of saying, &ld
The sticker inside the driver’s door says 35 PSI. After an hour on the highway, the dashboard says 39. Four extra pounds of pressure sounds like a problem. The tires were set correctly that morn
Set the cruise control to 70 mph and glance at the navigation screen. It may insist the car is traveling at 67. Increase the cruise setting to 71. GPS grudgingly moves to 68. The two displays can sp
A tire can look almost offensively healthy for its age. The tread grooves are deep. There are no nails in sight. The sidewalls still turn glossy after a wash, and the car has covered so few miles th
Here is a mildly alarming experiment: open the trunk of your car and lift the floor. There may be a spare tire under there. There may also be a little black compressor, a bottle of sealant, and a