This is a follow up to my last post about driving habits. This time, we’re looking at maintenance, performance, and functionality! I’ll start.

Tires. Very few people understand the importance of good tires. Not only that, but the habits for maintaining them. Firstly, your tires are the only thing truly connecting the road to the rest of your vehicle. This extremely important link is overlooked when I comes to just about every category people look for in a car. Generally, Performance, Comfort, and Efficiency are the three focuses consumers have with vehicles, and it heavily affects all three.

Performance is self explanatory. You want to go fast? Good tires are the easiest thing to change for the biggest gains. New tires means as much power as possible your engine puts into spinning those wheels gets delivered into the road, propelling you forward. More grip also improves braking, cornering, and lack of hydroplaning in the rain, or slipping in the snow and dirt.

Comfort. You want a smooth, quiet ride? Get new tires first. This will dampen vibrations coming from road imperfections that travel to the cabin area, and that means you won’t feel the bumps, the rumbles, the texture of the road, meaning you can enjoy your drive in peace.

Efficiency. Want to know what’s efficient? Getting up to speed, maintaining speed, and keeping control. The enemy to all of this is losing grip, and tires play a huge role. Even if you drive easy, the ability to turn at consistent speeds without braking is more efficient, so it not slipping while driving up a hill, so is not sliding around in harsh conditions. Better tires save gas, they save your suspension, they save your money.

What other aspects do you feel are not well understood or are under-appreciated here?