TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - It's about to become dangerously hot---even by Arizona standards. The danger's more than heat exhaustion for you.
It will make the roads hot enough to increase the danger of tire blow-outs, especially if you're not maintaining your tires.
Just rolling down the road makes a tire heat up.
Combine the heat in our forecast, with a tire you did not keep at the right pressure and you risk a blow-out and maybe a rollover.
Arizona Highway Patrol Trooper Kameron Lee says, “With heat comes expansion and so that rubber expands and if you have tires that are not in good shape, they're dry rotted, things like that you increase that stress and potentially have a blow out."
If you do have a blowout you need to resist the urge to stand on the brakes because that could make you lose control. Instead, let off the brake and the gas and concentrate on maintaining control as you try to gently coast to the side of the road.
Naturally it's better to avoid that danger altogether. Look in your car's door frame for the sticker that lists the right pressure for your car and head to the air pump.
Troope Lee says, “If you have any questions we ask you to take it into a tire shop. Take it to the professionals that can inflate it to where they need to be."
Years of heat and sun can damage the sidewalls, lead them to fail, or let the tread fly off the body of the tire. It pays to remember time alone can be enough to make a tire weaker. Experts sometime recommend new tires every four to seven years but Arizona's tough conditions could make that even sooner.
