Breaking in Your New Tires

When purchasing new tires It’s never as simple as buy, install, and drive off. New tires have to be shipped, expedited on transport and then sit in warehouses up until its new owner adopts them. That process can take a few weeks or a few months. In addition, during the manufacturing process the tires are coated with release lubricants to keep them from sticking to their molds, and make the black rubber look richer and even shiny. With that said, some of this lubricant stays on the tires up until they’re worn off so you really do need to break in tires in order to get the full traction.

Z Tire Express of Valdosta would like you to keep mind, that some tires take up to 500 miles to properly break in and to experience the full potential of the tire.

Handling with My New Tires Feels Loose or Unresponsive?

The reason older tires feel more responsive is because there’s less tread left. On the tire flip-side, tires with the full amount of tread may not respond as quickly and feel skittish at first. Also don’t forget about the release lubricants in the new tire rubber from manufacturing! It may even feel unresponsive even if you replaced them with the same model of tires but that’s just because you now have new deeper tread. This is one of the reasons NASCAR racers must “S” pattern and break in their tires during a race. It helps to break them in and to feel the difference in the handling after the tire change.

Can I Drive Off with the Tire Labels Still on?

Would you leave the store with your size stickers on your jeans? To be honest you probably could but we wouldn’t recommend it. The bottom line, you will already have traction issues while breaking your tires in so why make it worse by having stickers on the bottom of your tires. Besides, it looks cheesy driving down the freeway with your stickers flickering as your tires spin.

My Gas Mileage is Worse on these New Tires.

In general, new tires may decrease your fuel efficiency because of the increased tread depth on the tires. As a general rule of tires, as tread depth decreases, your rolling resistance decreases thus creating less work for the motor. In short, your gas mileage will get better as your tire get broken in.

The Z Tire Express Team hope you enjoy these tips, if your in the Lowndes County / Valdosta area please stop in and check out the savings when you purchase your new or used tires from Z Tire Express.