Maximising Your Mileage: Expert Tips to Extend Your Tyres' Lifespan

Tyres are the sole point of contact between your vehicle and the road, and as such, impact more performance aspects than any other element, including handling, acceleration, ride quality and so much more. Replacing them is of utmost importance when they start to wear down, but balancing the budget with a new set of tyres is tricky and there are ways of knowing when to make the change at the optimal time.

If you’re new to driving or unfamiliar with how long your vehicle’s tyres can go before needing a change, this article is for you. We’ll go through how often you should change your tyre before they become undrivable, and give you tips on how to make those wheels go the extra mile and last enough to save you money. We are one of the UK’s leading tyre and alloy wheel suppliers, so we are committed to giving you safe information you can use in full confidence that you will not be endangering yourself or others.

How Long Do Tyres Last?

On average, most tyres should be replaced around every 5-6 years. Nevertheless, many variants can affect this, such as what tyre you’re using, what climate you’re in and how much you take care of it generally.

When Should You Replace Tyres?

Knowing when to replace your tyres is crucial to avoiding a tyre blowout and subsequent breakdown or serious accidents.

Keep a watch on the tyre tread depth to know when a tyre has run its course. Measure the depth of the central three-quarters of the tyre all the way around the tyre using the outer edge of a 20p coin (this is just the edge that has the minting information and is about 2mm wide). If your tyre tread is less than 2mm deep, your tyres are falling dangerously close to the legal minimum depth of 1.6mm, and you’ll already be feeling a performance deterioration. At this stage, you should seek a replacement immediately.

How to Extend Tyre Lifespan

There are a few handy ways to take your tyres beyond their expected lifespan while staying safe. These include clever use of tyre rotation, negative bad driving habits and more.

Rotate Your Front and Rear Tyres

Rotating your tyres can be a helpful tactic in evening out the wear on your set of tyres. If your vehicle is front-wheel drive (FWD) or rear-wheel drive (RWD), you’ll find that over time the pair of tyres that are being used for the steering will have deteriorated more than the static tyres.

Thus, after a couple of years of use, it’s wise to swap the front and rear wheels over to rotate duties and give your more worn tyres a break. According to Michelin, the best time to rotate the tyres is around every 5,000 to 6,000 miles.

Due to the structure of all-wheel drive (AWD) vehicles in which all four wheels are in use for steering, this method would not benefit this type of vehicle.

Use Winter Tyres

It may seem counterintuitive to save money on tyres by getting another set, but in the long run, giving your vehicle different sets of wheels for each key season will make them all last much longer together.

You’ll likely be donning summer or all-weather tyres throughout the year, which will more than double the rate at which they’ll deteriorate. However, winter tyres are softer and have smaller slits in the tread that make them great for shifting snow and ice out of the way and perform better at temperatures below 7°C. Since they’re designed for winter conditions, they’ll last a much greater distance than standard all-weather wheels.

For quality winter tyres, look no further than LK Performance, the UK’s most trusted aftermarket vehicle part supplier. We stock winter and summer tyres from world-renowned brands that you can put your faith in, including Yokohama, Continental, Goodyear, Falken and more. Plus, each tyre is rated by our technicians to offer you our expert opinion on their noise levels, fuel economy and grip in wet conditions.

Change Your Driving Style

Consider the bad habits you may have picked up over your time driving. You can have all the wheel-saving techniques but ultimately, the biggest factor that affects how many miles your tyres will go is how smoothly you drive them.

By making sure you are as smooth as can be when behind the wheel you will find yourself prolonging the lifespan of your tyres significantly. This includes everyday avoidances like driving too fast, breaking too heavily and cornering too abruptly.

Do Premium Tyres Have a Longer Lifespan?

In short, yes they do. Premium tyres use first-rate materials that are designed to be more durable and fuel-efficient. Tyres from the likes of Bridgestone, Continental and Goodyear are used in the finest motorsport events in the world such as Le Mans 24 Hours, Nürburgring 24 Hours and Formula One. If top racing teams can trust these manufacturers to deliver consistent performance at the pinnacle of the sport, imagine what they’ll do for your everyday drive.

At LK Performance, we have a bounty of tyres from these manufacturers and so much more. Our free online tyre fitment checker filters our entire store to show just the tyres that fit your vehicle. Enter your tyre fit details, and we’ll access our database of over 30 million vehicle records to take care of the rest. From there, you can choose between premium tyres that will last many more miles than your stock tyres. Order from LK Performance today and save on running costs in the future.