Does Tire Tread Affect Your Stopping Distance?

If you want the short answer, it’s a resounding yes, your tire tread does affect your
car’s ability to safely stop when you hit the brake pedal. But, this is a situation where the short answer
doesn’t quite tell you everything.

There’s much more to unpack and many more questions to answer, so let’s go over what safe
tread depth looks like, how it relates to your brakes, and why you need to replace your tires when their treads
are no longer safe.

The Connection Between Tire Tread and Braking Distance

Here are a few questions we commonly get asked about tires, stopping distance, and how they
affect each other.

What is Tire Tread Depth?

Tire tread depth is the distance between your tires’ deepest grooves and their highest
peaks. These depths are measured in 32nds of an inch. Most new tires have a tread depth of 11/32 or 10/32 of an
inch, depending on the specific type of tire.

As you drive your car around, the road and other elements slowly eat away at the
rubber, reducing tread depth over time. It’s often recommended that you replace your tires when they wear down
to 3/32 or 4/32 of an inch.

Most tire shops will strongly recommend a replacement once it gets down to 2/32 of an
inch, because by that point, the tires are getting very little traction.

Tread depth matters because those grooves help deal with debris, water, snow, and other
precipitation by ensuring that the tops of the tires’ surfaces can hit smooth ground and move the car forward
safely. As your tire treads get lower and more worn out, the grooves are less able to squeeze those potential
problems out of the way. That means the tires can’t meet the road as effectively and create the friction needed
to make the car move, or stop when you apply the brakes.

What is Braking Distance?

Braking distance—also known as stopping distance—is the time it takes between the moment you
apply your car’s brakes and the moment your vehicle comes to a full stop. Your vehicle’s braking distance is
affected by tire tread depth, speed before braking, brake system’s condition, and the overall weight of the
vehicle and its payload. The road’s condition also impacts your braking distance. These things all combine to
determine how easily and quickly your car can stop.

What’s the Relationship Between These Things?

While tread depth is just one of several factors that influence your braking distance,
it can have a large impact on it.

An organization called Hunter Engineering Company recently studied how
long it takes cars to stop with different tread depths. Here’s what they found:

• It took 10/32-inch tires 234 feet to stop a car.
• With 6/32-inch tires, the car stopped 253 feet after the brakes were applied.
• With 4/32-inch tires, the car came to a halt after 282 feet.
• On 2/32-inch tires, which are nearly worn out, the car stopped 356 feet after a driver applied the brakes.

For those of you who aren’t all that fond of math, that means that in this particular
scenario, the tire tread depth altered the car’s braking distance by 122 feet. Obviously, this is significant,
and understanding its importance can mean the difference between getting into a collision
and driving away unscathed.

How Can You Keep Your Tires at a Safe Depth?

Once your tires wear down, the only thing you can do is replace them since, unlike hair or
fingernails, they don’t grow back to their full depth. When your tires wear down, McCarthy Auto Group has
quality replacements for sale, and we have multiple locations around the Greater
Kansas City area. We’ll help you choose the correct tires for your vehicle and swap them out so you can stop
your car safely and effectively. Our certified collision centers also perform wheel alignments.