- Oh, my goodness,
gracious, great balls of fire.
One of the best feelings in the world is when you finally,
after 64 DM's and five phone calls,
you've decided to finally pull the trigger on
wheels for you car.
Hopefully with us, ya know.
Not gonna guilt trip ya if you didn't,
but I definitely will because that's our thing.
Anyway, life is good,
and you're watching that tracking information like a hawk.
Finally, they arrive, wheels and tires,
mounted, bound, shipped right there in front of you,
like you didn't even have to do anything,
but you notice something,
just a little weird.
The tires seem a bit stretched.
Throw em' on your stock suspension WRX,
and you wonder why your car now look like it
may have skipped leg day,
and you end up cursing the world as you try to decide
if you're gonna burn 'em off or just get coil overs
early and slam it on the ground.
Either way, there are a ton of rookie mistakes
that revolve around tires, and it's way more common
than making mistakes when picking out your wheels.
So, we're here to talk about it.
I'm Alex, Alex.FI on the picture page,
and today we're gonna be talking about
those rookie (bleep) mistakes people make when buying tires.
(dramatic music)
And if you're looking for wheels, tires, or suspensions,
Fitmentindustries.com, you know the drill,
and, let's get into the good old juicy story slash mistakes.
There's so many, there's a ton, I've all made 'em.
We've made 'em, they've made 'em,
I've made 'em, we've all made 'em.
One of the biggest mistakes you could make
when buying tires is simply sorting by lowest price first,
and purchasing the first thing you see,
without actually looking at anything else.
Tires are a finicky thing, they have three numbers
that help decide what size they are,
load index numbers and letters,
tread designs,
compound types,
decide what sort of weather the tires can be driven in
and a few other goodies that 95 percent of the
automotive population when picking out the first
set of wheels don't actually know or care much about.
However, if you don't know what size you're buying,
you're likely gonna get either like a super fat setup
or the P and an H.
Or a stretch set up because smaller tires are cheaper.
When in doubt, sort by most popular first
as you're likely gonna have a better chance running
what others have ran in the past.
If you don't wanna do that,
you don't wanna just let the popular take
the matters into their own hands,
here are a few common setups.
A 225 and a 40 is good for an 18 by 8 or
for a smaller tire so it looks functional.
245 40's for a track-ish style look.
For an 18 by 9, 255 35's look good
and will still give you an edge of wheel cover
when you're looking at your tire or your wheel rim.
275 35's on an 18 by 10 also look good.
If you prefer doing a stant setup,
we did a whole video on how to calculate that.
However, when in doubt for stretch setups,
on anything above an eight inch wide,
just go 215's or 225's because you can stretch
anything with a 215 or a 225.
There's a gallery that will show you literally
every single wheel and tire spec over any car.
You can just go there.
Double check the sizing before you're actually about to
buy something so you're not surprised when they show up
at your door.
Fitmentindustries.com/gallery
Another rookie mistake people make when buying tires is
buying tires solely for looks.
Listen, I get it.
The Archeblade R is a nasty looking tire.
The NTO 5 and NTO 1 are definitely a tire that looks like
you want to beat up kids in the playground.
But you're not gonna be able to get to the playground
if your car meets a tree because you're going around
a corner a little bit too quick in the rain.
Buying a tire that is good at metric driving styles,
which you're gonna wanna do,
if you do in fact need a drag tire then go get one, son.
But it's important that you don't put those on a car
you plan on driving all the time.
Likewise for your drifter track day setup,
you're not gonna wanna run something super aggressive
because it's not gonna help you connect to the actual road.
Remember, these are the things that keep all your
tote ponies in the right place.
Which goes into price for tire.
There's always a comment below that's like
Nankang's for life with a Y and a heart.
In all honesty, there's gonna be plenty of tire brands
that will actually get the job done to you
that aren't inherently a million dollars.
And it's not a bad thing either.
You just have to understand where the quality of
whatever tire you purchase ends.
For instance, on the other end of the spectrum you have,
Michelin's which can be a bit more pricey.
But they are known for being one of the best tires
in the business when it comes down to their pilot score
4s's or sport cup 2's.
If you're working to dial in your car
and you need your tire to perform perfectly,
you're gonna need to spend a little bit more change.
If you're just looking to shred through tires
and just want to have a decent setup
that won't break the bank,
that's alright too and you can do you boo boo.
Just don't argue with the expensive tire people
because then the cheap tire people
and they just all get in a mess.
There's plenty of tire snobs out there though,
that ones that will cry if you don't get the exact tire
that they told you to buy and all the reasons why
the tires you bought were trash.
You don't need those kind of people in your life.
But another rookie mistake comes down to when people
go into running staggered setups for their wheels
and get the wrong staggered tire setup.
Here's the situation with that.
Staggered setups are finicky because the fronts
and the rears are different wheel sizes.
Here's an example,
a nine inch wide wheel in the front
and a 12 inch wide wheel in the rear.
Because you like to party.
But if you end up buying 255 35's all the way around,
you're not gonna have a very fun time
looking at your new wheel setup.
Pro tip here: if you're looking to run staggered setup,
always search by your wheel and tire setup
in the rear first.
Lots of times when you start with your front setup,
which is usually the smaller wheel size out of the two,
you have tons of options.
But when you're looking for a 12 inch wide wheel
in the rear with some 305 30's,
your options are going to pretty much become like three.
Searching by rear first allows you a much better chance at
finding a tire that comes in both the width that you need
and also the size that you need.
And the narrow boy will be there by the time
you get to the front.
Ready for a speed round?
Let's go.
Don't try swapping your OEM tires onto after market wheels.
OEM tires have like a 6000 side wall height
and look just bunk.
TPMS purchases are becoming more of a standard
than an option these days.
Some systems on new cars won't actually even work
if the TPMS doesn't work,
Folk at Ford Focus ST owners know that.
And if you don't get TPMS when you get new wheels
and tires its kind of a pain in the butt.
10 out of 10 would recommend buying them so your dash
doesn't look like a Christmas tree,
unless you're okay with that.
But if you've got an old car, a lot of times
you don't really need them either.
Not all tires are created equal.
But not all expensive tires are the best.
Go off what you know and the history that you've done.
If nothing else, go with what's popular.
Not a smart tip here, but we'd rather see you run what
others have ran in the past than guess and end up with
some like tractor tires, maybe some like 255's 75 18's
it'd look really weird.
Alignment is an option, but you'll find most places
recommend it after putting on new tires onto the car
since it does technically change the
alignment of your vehicle.
Understanding compounds and all the fancy stuff
can be a pit of a pain, so instead of going into the
intricacies of rubber compounds and all that jack,
let's just keep it simple for those that are looking
to learn fast.
Winter tires are the best gift mankind has ever gifted us
boys and girls in the north.
If you want a tire that will keep you from going somewhere
you shouldn't in the wintertime.
Save up for some good winter tires.
Negatives to these bad boys,
they don't make good anything else tires.
They're very focused to working in the snow
and that's about it.
They're expensive.
They come in limited sizes.
And they don't look very sporty.
No, I'm not counting the Pirelli's.
All seasons are the converse of the tire game.
Everyone likes them.
They're okay for everything.
But aren't inherently fantastic for everything
unless you're paying a crazy dollar amount, and even then,
you won't be like Ken Block in the sand dunes.
Negatives to all seasons are their lack of focused purpose.
Which means they try to be good at everything
but can't nail down perfection in all categories.
These have a ton of sizes though with low profiles that most
people end up snagging for their after market wheels.
All seasons always a solid choice.
Summer tires are the cool kid on the block
and mostly come in big boy sizes and decent profiles
and side wall heights.
However, they aren't the best in inclement weather
and can have a doozy of a time if they aren't in temperature
even the more expensive ones.
In fact, the more expensive ones are sometimes more
finicky than the not expensive ones.
Not all summer tires stretch too well so it's important
to do your research if you're trying to fit some
215's on a 10 wide with a summer tire like a Michelin
or a Toyo because they don't-- some of them really just
don't like to stretch.
And finally the last rookie mistake we have for you
when it comes down to tires is not actually picking them up
when you pick up wheels.
Now, hear me out here.
A lot of times people end up picking up their wheels
and their tires separately.
And this mostly happens when people are trying to test fit
wheels before picking up tires.
Which does inherently make sense.
The problem is that when you end up spending
quite a bit more if you end up buying the things separately.
When tires and wheels get packaged together it allows
you to save money because the margins that companies
like us have on them get cut into to give a better deal all
in one go so that you end up spending the money right away.
Separating the purchase ends up removing the few extra
hundred dollars you would save if you did it together.
Also, if you end up with a stretch tire setup
and you buy them separately,
have you ever seen the look the local tire shop
will give you when you show up.
They will disown you.
They will toss you out.
Like a lukewarm bowl of ramen.
They will judge the (beep) out of you
through that visitor window pane of glass they have
while you innocently eat the free granola bars.
You know what I'm talking about.
The random 60 year old dude at Sears would look at you,
look at the tires and then say, no.
And then he's either gonna end up with banged up wheels
because they decided to try to fit the stretch tires
on there or you're gonna need to find another shop
to install them because they won't even touch it.
Guess what, we don't judge.
We'll do it for you, buddy.
Come on over.
Hang out with us.
However, that doesn't randomly mean purchase your (beep)
and then just get bunk fitment.
Use the wonderful world wide web and check out the gallery
so you know what wheels and tires will actually look like
on your car before they show up.
I swear, if we get another DM because you flunked out
on fitment class, I'm gonna dye my hair white.
So what are some rookie mistakes you've made
when buying tires?
Drop a comment below and let us know.
Thank you guys so much for watching
and if you're looking for wheels, tires, or suspensions
be sure to hit us up at fitmentindustries.com.
I'm Alex from Fitment Industries.
We will see you later.
Peace.