Having spent the better part of a year installing tires at the Pep Boys in Fredericksburg, Va., I thought I knew a thing or two about how a tire is mounted to a rim. It was my first job after ...

You’re railing that descent, nailing every line and feeling like a world champ, when suddenly you smash a wheel into a big square-edge rock. Quite literally, you can feel the air go out of the ride.

The most important pieces of real estate on your car are those four small contact patches that grip the road: your tires. Those few square inches of rubber determine just about everything. Tires ...