Understanding Tire Markings and Why They Are Important

Having new and safe tires on your vehicle is extremely important. Your tires are your one connection point to the road, and you can easily suffer a serious or life-threatening wreck if anything goes wrong.

Continually checking, and if needed, changing your tires is an essential element of car maintenance. Insight into the type and life of your tires can be found in the markings you see on the side. However, these can seem confusing if you do not have any experience reading them.

Like all things, reading tire markings gets easier with practice and knowledge. A common tire may have the following code: P215/R15 95H

• The 'P' means that it is a passenger car, as opposed to a light truck (LT) or others
• The '215' is the width of the tires in millimeters
• The 'R' means that the tire is radial, rather than built with diagonal or bias belt fabric
• The '15' means that the tire is meant to fit on 15-inch rims
• The '95' is the load index that the tire can support
• The 'H' is the speed the tire can sustain, in this case 130 MPH

All tires made for use in the U.S. must also have a Department of Transportation (DOT) code. This gives information about the manufacturer, location where it was made, mold number, batch, and perhaps most importantly, the date the tire was manufactured. You can use this for guidelines on when to change your tires.

Being knowledgeable about your tires and checking them continually goes a long way to ensuring the safety of yourself and your passengers; however, there are some Florida defective tire accidents that you simply cannot avoid. These wrecks can have long-term and damaging consequences.

If you or a loved one has been injured in a car or truck wreck that you believe was caused by defective or weak tires, call the Florida defective tire attorneys at Chalik & Chalik today at (888) 539-5297.

You may be able to recover damages as the result of your crash, but the cases can be very complex and the insurance companies will make it difficult. You need an experienced lawyer on your side. Call us today for the information about your rights that you need to know.