A new car is allowed a few small imperfections. The protective plastic may still be clinging to the touchscreen. The tires may feel slightly noisy before they settle in. The cabin may smell like an in
A slow turn into a parking space should not feel dramatic. The car is barely moving, the steering wheel is wound around and there is little opportunity for anything exciting to happen. Then a front
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 drifts gently toward the shoulder, and suspicion immediately falls on the alignment. That is understandable. A car should travel where it is pointed, and anything that seems to tug at the s
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
At the tire shop, the choice seems too obvious to question. The front tires on a front-wheel-drive car handle the steering, put the power down, and do most of the braking. They usually wear out first.
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
Most people do not think about their tires until one of them does something rude. A warning light comes on. The car starts feeling strange. A road trip gets interrupted. Something looks low.
There's a specific kind of frustration that comes from walking out to your car in the morning and finding a tire that's low — again. Not flat, just soft. And soft again two days later af