Your tyres are your sole point of contact with the road – the four areas which connect your engine and its power with the ground beneath to carry you forwards.
Many people underestimate how a change in tyres can affect how your car handles on the road, especially if your current tyres are worn away and provide little traction.
Upgrading your wheels and tyres can make a big impact when driving, so here’s what you should consider and how to go about changing your tyres yourself.
Performance vs aesthetic
Some people might want to swap their tyres over to performance models for better grip, while others could consider changing their wheels so they look closer to their dream car.
For those looking to change their wheels for aesthetic reasons, your existing tyres may be fine to keep. Provided the tread meets the required 1.6mm legal requirement, your tyres will still be serviceable on the road. You can always spray the alloys for a different look, or you can look to replace these with specialist ones for a specific look.
There are plenty of performance tyres you can buy online for your car, offering a wide range of benefits over standard stock tyres. Find the ones which you like the look of and order the ones which will fit your wheels – be sure to pick up a spare too!
Size of the wheel
Ideally, you should look to replace your car wheels with ones of an identical diameter which your car is designed for. There is some room to go slightly bigger if you really want to, just make sure that it will be compatible. Bigger tyres can affect both the look of your car overall and how it performs on the road, so make sure it’s the right upgrade for what you want.
Colourful additions
Cosmetic changes are often motivated by a shift in colour. You may want to opt for some gloss black wheels if you own a black car, giving it a stealthy, sleek overall finish. Others may want to add gold wheels or something which adds a nice contrast with the body paint colour of the car. So long as the components are compatible with your car, you can really go for any colour that makes you happy.
How to change a tyre
You’ll need to first jack the car up from the ground in order to provide the clearance for the existing wheel to be removed.
In order to remove the wheel, you can either use a manual wheel removal tool like a cross wheel tool, or an automatic one like the Milwaukee impact wrench that can remove nuts in no time at all.
Once the wheel is off, you can use a separate tyre lever in order to remove your existing tyre. You can then put your existing tyre onto a new wheel, add a new performance tyre onto your existing wheel, or just attach your entirely new wheel and tyre combo.
Follow this process for each of your wheels, ensuring the tyre pressure is correct, and then you’re ready to go.
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