Friday, Aug. 16, 2002 | 6:16 a.m.
line By Ed Koch LAS VEGAS SUN
TIRE TIPS
LAS VEGAS SUN
Tips on how to get the best out of your tires from the Rubber Manufacturers Association, AAA-Nevada, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Big O Tires:
Under normal driving conditions, how long should a poor quality new tire last? How about a good one?
Why is a "B" considered a good grade for the temperature factor of a small passenger car tire under the Uniform Tire Quality Grading System?
How many pounds per square inch of air should you add to a tire above the manufacturer's recommended amount for every 10 degrees of outdoor temperature above 72 degrees?
Stumped? Don't feel alone. A lot of folks know very little about tires, experts say, warning that what we don't know can have serious consequences.
"What most people know about tires is that they are black, round and have a hole in the middle," said Wes Stephenson, whose father, James, brought the first Big O Tires franchise to Las Vegas in 1978.
Today Wes and his brother, Jeff, operate Big O franchises throughout the Las Vegas Valley.
"As a member of our company's National Dealer Planning Board, I can tell you that Las Vegas shops are among the busiest for repairs and replacement of the 500 stores in our chain," Wes Stephenson said.
"I have talked to a number of dealers from other regions who say only a small section of their shops are set aside for repairs. For us, it is a big part of our business because of desert conditions."
National statistics show that the blistering Las Vegas climate takes a serious toll on tires.
Atle Erlingsson, spokesman for AAA-Nevada, said last year in Las Vegas flat tires accounted for 15.3 percent of road service calls, third behind tows and battery problems.
Nationwide AAA statistics show that flat tire service placed fourth last year behind tows, batteries and lockouts at 12.6 percent of the 28.1 million road service calls.
"In one of our surveys 82 percent of our members said they checked their tires regularly," Erlingsson said. However, he says, he is not surprised that some tire experts say fewer people actually pay such attention to their tires.
The Rubber Manufacturers Association, for example, conducted a survey this year that found that one in three drivers do not check tire pressure before taking long trips with fully loaded vehicles.
Based on what he has seen growing up in the business, Stephenson said, at best one in five motorists check their tires for air on a regular basis.
"We live in an age of maintenance-free automobiles -- batteries that do not require you to add water, engines that do not need to be tuned but once every 100,000 miles, extended life fluids," he said. "We tend to assume that all aspects of car care is maintenance free. But that is not the case with tires.
"We want people to be educated about tires because our warranty is so strong, I have to give away a free tire if one fails before it wears out. And the desert can destroy good tires before their time."
Stephenson said much of what manufacturers have learned about defects is from conditions in Las Vegas, Arizona, Florida and Texas. For instance, he said, the highly publicized defects in the Firestone Wilderness tires that resulted in a nationwide recall were first spotted because of their failures in hot climates.
Stephenson, who does not sell Firestone tires, says Firestone also makes very good quality lines of tires, as do all of today's major tire companies -- a factor, he says, that contributes to people's complacency about checking their tires.
"Technology is so far ahead of what it was 20 years ago that even a poor quality tire today can go 40,000 miles," he said. "When I started, good quality tires went 60,000 miles. Today, they can go 100,000 miles."
Stephenson said you don't have to rely on a tire dealer's pitch to pick out a good tire because the federal government, through testing, has set the standards for tires and requires that information be printed on every tire.
The Uniform Tire Quality Grading System determines grades for tread wear, traction and temperature. The tires with the best tread wear have a 700 grade. A low grade is 320. Traction and temperature grades range from C to AA.
Stephenson said that because smaller tires build up heat faster, his company will not sell a tire that does not rate at least a B for temperature, which is usually the highest grade a small passenger car tire can attain.
What motorists should not rely on that is printed on the side of every tire is the pounds per square inch, Stephenson said.
"That is the maximum psi for the tire, not the recommended psi," he said. "The manufacturer's recommended psi is in the owner's manual or in the front door frame."
Stephenson said the formula to determine what psi is right for tires in the desert is that for every 10 degrees above 72 degrees of outdoor temperature add one pound per square inch. So tires with a manufacturer's recommended psi of 26 should be filled to 29 psi on a 102-degree day for best tire performance.
But even the best tires given the best care can fail.
Stephenson said one common mistake motorists make is assuming that the front end is out of alignment and is shaking because of it. More often, Stephenson said, the heavy vibration problem is caused by the separation of a tire's bands.
Though not causedby heat, Stephenson said, that problem is revealed when the tire gets hot. If that tire is replaced, the shaking will go away. If it is ignored, it eventually could blow, Stephenson said.
Also, Stephenson said, a small nail piercing a tire can cause it to lose pressure and result in a blowout. In such cases, a simple patch can save the life of an otherwise perfectly good tire.
"We hear stories from motorists who experienced tire blowouts without any damage to their car or injuries to themselves," Stephenson said.
"Nevertheless, it is extremely dangerous to not address problems, because what we don't hear are worse stories from people killed in accidents as a result of high speed blowouts of tires that could have been repaired or replaced."com
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