winter tires: simple tips for checking before changing
Guide: winter driving
Temperatures drop: the road with the car can become slippery. These seven tips will get you through the winter safely.
If you want to change to winter tires for your car, you often ask yourself: are mine still good?? This is an easy way to determine.
Berlin. Although there is no legally obligatory cut-off date to change winter tires to put on. According to the old rule of thumb "from O to O" so from october to easter, it’s about time to change the tires on your car. But quite a few motorists who now lift their stored tires out of the cellar or the corner of the garage ask themselves: are they still any good at all?? There are a few simple tricks, with which this can be checked quickly and easily.
Winter tires: what the two-euro trick is all about
The minimum tread depth, still permitted in germany is 1.6 millimeters. However, the allgemeine deutsche automobil-club(ADAC) recommends a tread depth as low as four millimeters to change the winter tires. if you want to check whether your winter tires have this tread depth, all you need is a two-euro coin. Their silver rim is aforementioned four millimeters wide. If you put the coin between two profile blocks and can no longer see the edge, there is still enough profile available.
By the way, the same trick also works for summer tires, for which the ADAC recommends a tread depth of three millimeters. This again corresponds to the golden edge of a one-euro coin.
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winter tires too old? How to find out
For the maximum age There are no legal requirements for winter tires on passenger cars. But the ADAC makes a clear recommendation of a maximum of six years. By the way, this also applies to tires that were just lying around in storage. Even if they have never been ridden, the rubber compound becomes harder and harder over the years. This in turn has a negative impact on braking distance and road grip.
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If you now want to find out how old your own tires are, you can do this using the DOT number do. This is located on the outside of the tire and indicates the date of manufacture with the last four digits. The first two of these numbers indicate the calendar week and the last two numbers the year of manufacture. Tires with a DOT number ending in 3416 were manufactured in the 34th week of manufacture. week of the year 2016 made.
Checking winter tires with your eyes and hands too
Go to safety check the winter tires should always be checked as well. Because logically, nails and other foreign body, the tire can be detected if it has dug itself into the tire.
But you can also check with your eyes whether the rubber of the tire is not already too porous is. This is manifested by the fact that in the tread and the sides of the tire cracks form. the cracks themselves, depending on their size, have little effect on the driving characteristics of the tire. But they are a clear sign that the rubber compound of the tire has lost too much elasticity. Then new winter tires are needed.
By the way, this also applies if the tire is bumps the ADAC warns. For this reason, drivers should always run their hands over the different sides of the tires in order to check the tread bumps in case of doubt. (jas with dpa)