Tire Buying Guide

If you install a different size than your original equipment tire, every vehicle manufacturer specification still has to be maintained. The most commonly missed one is inflation pressure. Your replacement tire must be inflated to provide the same load capability that the original size delivered at the manufacturer's recommended pressure. That is a calculation, not a guess, and getting it wrong affects load capacity and safety.

Walking into a tire shop without preparation is how drivers end up with the wrong tire at the wrong price. Five specific questions change that dynamic completely. They cover fitment, seasonal suitability, warranty terms, what is actually included in installation, and whether the tire you want can be ordered rather than settling for whatever is in stock today.

Mixing tire sizes, types, or constructions on the same vehicle creates handling imbalances that show up exactly when you need the vehicle to behave predictably. For four-wheel drive vehicles, if your owner's manual gives no instructions on mixing, the safest rule is simple: do not mix sizes. Matching all four positions gives you consistent grip, consistent braking, and consistent behavior in an emergency.

If your car is high-performance, doesn’t it make sense to have tires that are just as high-performance? The main benefits of performance tires are higher speed capability, improved handling and maximum dry road grip*. (The negatives are lower tread life and higher costs.) But you need to know that all performance tires aren’t the same, which is why many high performance car owners own multiple sets of tires. (They often switch to all-season or winter tires in the fall and winter for improved winter grip.)

Each tire category is built for a temperature range, and using one outside that range costs you either safety or tread life. All-season tires handle warm weather well and moderate winter conditions reliably. Summer tires are optimized for warm conditions and should not be used where temperatures consistently approach freezing. Winter tires are engineered for severe cold, snow, ice, and slush.

When you choose a tire, you’re choosing how much fun you can have in the driver’s seat. And if you can appreciate higher performance, BFGoodrich® brand is the tire for you. Decades of motorsports success have helped us develop tires to give you the grip and control that your spirited driving demands — either on-road or off. Because the more control you have, the more fun you’ll have too.

Tire wear patterns are a diagnostic tool. Where the tread wears tells you exactly what is wrong with the vehicle underneath. Shoulder wear on both edges means chronic underinflation. Center wear means overinflation. One-sided wear means an alignment issue. Cupping means imbalance or worn shocks. Reading the pattern points you at the cause, and fixing the cause protects your next set of tires.

Tire upgrading, also called plus-sizing, is the practice of replacing your original equipment wheels with wider, larger diameter wheels and correspondingly lower profile tires. Done correctly it makes the vehicle look sportier and improves handling through a shorter stiffer sidewall. Done incorrectly it wrecks your speedometer accuracy, your ride quality, and potentially your load capacity.