Tires
Tire Shop in Royal Oak MI
Tires are the only part of your car that touches the road, and every other system depends on them. We mount, balance, rotate, repair and replace, and we'll tell you when a tire still has life in it rather than selling you four.
- Road force balancing
- Puncture repairs where it's safe to repair
- All makes and models
- Free inspection with every service
Reading The Sidewall
What 225/50R17 98V actually says
Everything you need to buy the right tire is molded into the side of the one you have. It looks like a serial number and it is not. Each part of it is a measurement.
- 225
- Section width in millimeters, measured across the widest part of the inflated tire. Bigger is not automatically better. The width has to suit the wheel it is mounted on, and a tire stretched or squeezed onto the wrong rim width does not sit on the road the way it was designed to.
- 50
- Aspect ratio: the sidewall height as a percentage of the width, so this sidewall is 112 mm tall. A lower number means a shorter, stiffer sidewall, sharper steering and considerably less protection from the potholes on Woodward in March.
- R
- Radial construction. Essentially every passenger tire sold today is radial, so this is the least interesting character on the sidewall.
- 17
- Rim diameter in inches, which is the one figure with no flexibility in it at all. A 17 inch tire fits a 17 inch wheel and nothing else.
- 98
- Load index. 98 is 750 kg per tire. Trucks, vans and anything that tows need the load index the manufacturer specified, and a passenger-rated tire fitted to a van is a real safety problem rather than a technicality.
- V
- Speed rating, here 149 mph. It is less about speed than about how the tire is built to shed heat, and it is worth matching because insurance and manufacturer specifications both reference it.
- The four digit DOT code
- The week and year the tire was built, so 2219 is the twenty-second week of 2019. Rubber ages whether the car is driven or not, and a tire with deep tread and a date code six or seven years old is worth a conversation. This is the single most commonly missed thing on a used car.
We check the date code on every tire that comes through, including the spare, because a spare is usually the oldest tire on the vehicle and the one you find out about at the worst possible moment.
Check These
How to read your own tires
You can learn most of this in the driveway with a penny and two minutes. It's worth knowing before anyone quotes you for four.
Tread below 4/32 of an inch
The legal minimum is 2/32, but wet stopping distance falls off a cliff well before that. In a Michigan winter, 4/32 is the honest point to start planning replacement.
Wear on one shoulder only
Alignment, not tire quality. Replacing the tire without correcting the geometry just puts a clock on the new one.
Wear in the center or on both edges
Center wear is chronic overinflation. Both edges worn with a good center is chronic underinflation. Both are pressure habits rather than faults.
Cracking in the sidewall grooves
Age. Rubber hardens and crazes whether or not the car gets driven. A tire with deep tread and a cracked sidewall is still a tire to replace.
A bulge or blister on the sidewall
Impact damage to the internal structure. That isn't a monitor-it item. A bulge is a tire that can let go without warning and it should come off the car.
Vibration that arrives around 50 to 60 mph
Usually balance, sometimes a separated belt inside the tire. Road force balancing tells the two apart, which matters because one is a weight and one is a replacement.
Worth knowing
Your tires have a birth date on them
Four digits at the end of the DOT code: week, then year. 2219 is the twenty-second week of 2019. Rubber hardens and crazes with age whether the car is driven or parked, so a tire with deep tread and a date code six or seven years old is still a tire to replace. The spare is usually the oldest one on the vehicle.
What You Get
Every tire service includes
- Tread depth measured at multiple points
- Pressures set to the door placard
- New valve stems on new tire fitment
- Computerised balancing
- Wheel bolts torqued to specification
- Old tire disposal handled
- Free multi-point inspection
- Honest advice on two tires versus four
Mounting And Balancing
Why a bad balance feels like a bad tire
A wheel and tire assembly spinning at highway speed turns a few grams of imbalance into a force you feel through the steering wheel. Standard spin balancing corrects for that weight distribution, and for most cars it's enough.
Road force balancing goes further. It presses a loaded roller against the tire while it spins, simulating the weight of the car on the road, and measures variation in stiffness around the tire. That catches the tire that's perfectly balanced sitting still and still shakes at 60, which is the one that gets misdiagnosed as a suspension problem.
The mounting itself matters more than people expect. Correct bead seating, valve stems replaced rather than reused, and wheel bolts torqued to specification with a wrench rather than run down with an impact gun. An over-torqued wheel can warp a brake rotor, which is how a tire visit turns into a brake complaint two weeks later.
Fitting Tires
What a tire job involves here
Short version: measure, mount properly, balance properly, torque properly.
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Measure what you've
Tread depth at multiple points across each tire, plus pressure, age and damage. Sometimes the answer is two tires, not four.
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Talk about how you actually drive
Highway miles, winters, and what you want out of them. The right tire for a commuter isn't the right tire for someone who leaves the car parked all week.
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Mount with new valve stems
Beads seated correctly and stems replaced rather than reused. A five dollar part that causes slow leaks for years if it's skipped.
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Balance, road force where needed
Standard balance for most, road force when there's an existing vibration complaint or a tire that won't settle.
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Torque to spec and set pressures
A torque wrench, in sequence, to the manufacturer figure. Pressures set to the door placard, not to the number on the sidewall.
Questions
Tire questions
Do I need to replace all four tires?
Can you repair a puncture?
How often should tires be rotated?
What is road force balancing?
Do I need an alignment with new tires?
How old is too old for a tire?
Do you price match?
Related Work
What goes with tires
Book It
Need tires, or just an honest opinion on yours?
We'll measure them and tell you where you stand. 29444 Woodward Ave, Royal Oak. Book online or call and bring it in.