What Tires Should I Get for My Silverado?

The Chevrolet Silverado is one of the nation’s best-selling pickups. It’s a truck known to be as hardworking as you are, whether you’re on the job or just want to head off the beaten path and need a heavy-duty truck to get you there safely. If you have invested in a Silverado, you’re looking to get peak performance at all times. Often, that depends on the quality of your tires. So what are the best tires for a Chevy Silverado?

Why Are Tires Important?

Chevy Silverado pickup trucks are made to go places other vehicles won’t: through mud, rain, floodwaters, and snow, over rocky and uneven terrain, and up large hills or mountains. The Silverado is a complex machine with many moving parts that all play a role in its ruggedness. 

The tires on a Silverado, or any pickup truck for that matter, play a crucial role. Quality tires deliver improved fuel economy and contribute to the vehicle’s overall comfort, safety, and reliability. While tires are important to every car, they are especially important on the Silverado given how the truck is typically used. It makes sense to invest in the right tires for your Silverado.

What Tires Come With My New Silverado?

If you’re in the market for a new Chevrolet Silverado, the tires you end up with initially are chosen for you. The size and type ultimately relate to the trim and configuration you decide to purchase. Chevrolet offers six Silverado trim choices in two-wheel drive and eight trim choices in all-wheel drive.

Depending on which Silverado you ultimately purchase, you will head home with one of four wheel sizes: 17 inches, 18 inches, 20 inches, or 22 inches. The pre-installed tires on those wheels range from all-season blackwall or all-terrain blackwall tires to all-terrain white-outlined letter tires, mud-terrain Goodyear® Wrangler DuraTrac® tires, or Wrangler Territory blackwall tires.

As we all know, unfortunately, tires do not last forever. At some point, you will have to purchase new tires. It may be after you decide to upgrade the wheels on your truck. That’s when you get a greater say in which tires to put on your Silverado.

What Tires Should I Get for My Silverado?

The answer to this question, of course, is going to depend heavily on the performance of your truck. Once you have driven it for a while, you may have a better sense of which non-OEM tires will work the best on your Silverado. You have lots of choices. Often, the best tire is in the owner’s eye. However, experienced drivers who have gone this road before have reviewed the tire market and made suggestions on which replacement Silverado tires work best.

The website CarTalk, for instance, recommends three possibilities for tires on your 2021 Chevrolet Silverado LT and RST. These include the Bridgestone Dueler H/T D684 II, the Firestone Destination LE 3, and the Goodyear Wrangler Fortitude HT. For the Chevy Silverado Custom Trail Boss and LT Trail Boss, the site recommends either the Sumitomo Encounter AT, the BFGoodrich All-Terrain T/A KO2, or the Goodyear Wrangler All-Terrain Adventure with Kevlar.

Generally speaking, CarTalk recommends the Bridgestone Dueler, Firestone Destination, and the Goodyear Wrangler lines as the best choices for replacement tires on your Silverado.

You will find other sites that make other recommendations. Do your homework, and feel free to talk to the service staff at Koons Clarksville Chevrolet Buick GMC for more expert insight.

When Should You Replace Truck Tires?

The trick for successful truck ownership is anticipating problems before they happen. Once something goes wrong, your costs will inherently be higher. As a general rule, tires are made to last about five years. However, that time frame can be compressed, based on how hard and how far you drive. So you can initially judge the status of your tires based on the number of miles and how long you’ve been driving on that particular set of tires.

Happily, tires offer some additional objective evidence to let you know when it’s time to make the switch. Here’s a trick offered by Consumer Reports Magazine in its review of replacement tires: Take a quarter and place it inside of the tires’ bigger grooves. Examine where the tread is in relation to George Washington’s head. If it is flush with his head, then the tire is in good shape, Consumer Reports says, with about 4/32 of an inch of tread remaining. That’s plenty to help the car adhere to the road. When the tread falls below that mark, you need to start shopping for tires.

If you’d prefer a measurement from a trained mechanic using more sophisticated tools, feel free to ask the technicians at Koons Clarksville Chevrolet Buick GMC to take a look. We can calculate the amount of tread remaining and give you the best sense of whether the tires need replacing.

We agree with one observation from Consumer Reports in its tire review. Although the normal human instinct is to want to spend as little as possible, that may not be the best choice. Spending a little more upfront for a tire that will last longer and have fewer problems before wearing out may save enormous sums in the long run.

Whether you need new tires, an oil change, or another type of maintenance, trust the team at Koons Clarksville Chevy Buick GMC to provide the advice and expertise you need to keep your Silverado and all your other vehicles in top shape. Our service and parts teams are well-versed in current models across the three lines of cars. We also provide service for non-Chevy, Buick, and GMC autos, including everything from air-conditioning to window and body repair and even state inspection services. 

Making an appointment is as simple as a click of a mouse from the comfort of your own home using our service-scheduling portal. Our Koons certified service also offers complimentary pickup and delivery. Rely on our experienced service technicians to maintain your car so it lasts as long as you want it to.

*Image via Flickr by photodump2021

Tags: Chevy Silverado 1500, Silverado 1500
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