“If you have a long commute or are about to take a trip, you may want to give your tires a good once over,” reads this article from ABC’s Houston, TX affiliate ABC13.

Tires have to be built to exacting standards, but their vulcanized, rugged exteriors aren’t perfect. If your tires are old, you may start to see signs of cracking – a clear warning that a tire is past its prime. The hot summer weather can turn those cracks into tire failure.

Besides cracks, you should check your tires for other signs of trouble. If you see the wear bars in the tread of your tire, you need new tires immediately!

So before the long trip this summer, or even just before you head out on your daily commute, check those tires!

Click here to find out more about how to read the date codes on your tire, and check for signs of wear.

It’s best to replace tires according to a regular maintenance schedule, and having all four tires replaced at once is best. But sometimes, life gets in the way and for one reason or another, tires aren’t replaced all at once.

When buying tires two at a time, customers often ask if the new tires will perform best in the front or the back. Perhaps surprisingly, in general, the answer is that new tires perform best in the back – even on a front-wheel drive car. It may sound crazy, but it’s true!

Tires with brand new treads, mounted on the front-end, will help with starting traction in snow or other slippery conditions. But in those same types of conditions, having worn tires in the back can cause the rear-end to slide out when maneuvering or stopping. Once the rear wheels begin to slide, the car is much harder to control, increasing the chance of an accident. But since the front wheels can be steered, you have a much better chance of regaining control if the front wheels slide than if the rear wheels slide.

We recommend that you replace all four tires when it’s time to, but if you can’t, put the new tires on the back!

TOSY, a toy maker based in Vietnam, claims to be the first in the world to develop a remote controlled tire.

While Frank’s Tire Service specializes in passenger car tires, truck tires, and machine tires, we still found it neat, and think it would make a great gift for any RC tire enthusiasts out there.