How do I check my Tire Tread?

I was recently asked “How do I check the tread on my tires?” Welcome to Mercie J Auto Care where compassion and craftsmanship come together. I’m Rick Smith, master certified technician. There’s a couple of ways we can check tread depth on a vehicle’s tires. We can buy a little gauge that you put on there to check. We could also use a penny and the head of the president, if we put him upside down to the tread depth, as long as part of his head is covered, we usually have enough tread left. One of the things I’d like to show you today though that you may not be aware of, is if you have wear indicators on your tires. You can see it in this video, we have our tread and we have these little knobs in between the treads. This tire is getting pretty worn. It’s pretty close to that wear indicator if you can see it between my two fingers right there. Also on this tire you can see a lot of the tread is kind of gone on the outside because the outside of our tires typically wear first. We’re close to these wear indicators on the inside. These wear indicators are about a 16th of an inch deep so when you’re checking with the tread depth gauge, about a 16th of an inch is when the tires need to be replaced. Beyond that you have enough. When you check it, start at the most worn spot so you know that that’s where you have the least amount of tread left. So I hope this has been informational for you. Until next time, safe travels and blessings to you