hi I work for a tire store and I see this on a daily basis with all different smaller cars.Most manufacturers are putting on a soft rubber compund tire from the factory that have a life expectancy of around 20k to 25,000 miles.No salesman will tell you this when you are buying they're vehicles.The main thing when you get your new tires is doing research.I would recommend a website called tirerack.com for this research and check out their user review section but do not recommend buying any tire/wheel combinations online.I see many problems with the combo packages for rebalancing and finding out they're tire and wheel selection sucked and now they are stuck with a bad ride or vibration.And remember you get what you pay for.You can not get a descent quality tire and wheel package for under $1000.00 dollars.Do you want to put $500.00 into tire and wheels that ride like crap.The easiest way to mess up your ride quality is with cheap tires.

 

When i got new tires (went with Potenza G 009s, they seem to be working out), the guy at the counter (at a firestone complete auto care) said I "should always re-align my tires when I get new ones." Is this true? I didn't, and the car is not acting like it is out of alignment.

Also, I heard someone say that in the winter you should overinflate your tires. Is this true? It seems like you would get worse traction as less of the tire is in contact with the road.

 

An overinflated tire has a smaller contact patch and will dig deeper into the snow; therefore bettertraction.

 

I guess I need to get some compressed air. The morons who installed my new tires didn't inflate them fully.