Is there any part of your car more essential than the brakes and tires? You, your family and friends depend on those brakes to ensure your safety, whether driving in your McHenry neighborhood or farther afield.

This is true on a dry street. When winter comes to McHenry, you’ll frequently find the streets anything but dry. Ice, snow and water mixed with engine and transmission oils that have leaked onto the road – those are the elements you’ll find attacking the vital quality called ‘traction.’ Traction is the difference between a hasty stop and an extended skid.

If the brakes don’t work to their best ability, if the tires are slick or balding – trouble on dry pavement turns into disaster on a slippery street.

While brakes initiate the stopping process, tires are where traction meets the road. As brake pads wear, and rotors and drums are scored, stopping distances increase. As tire tread runs down, traction is reduced.

An inability to stop quickly is often compounded, during a McHenry winter, by an inability to steer. You’re trying to stop and, instead, you find yourself skidding towards a tree, barrier or an oncoming car. You discover that turning the steering wheel seems to have little or no effect on your direction of travel. Solid objects just seem to keep rushing at you. It’s very unnerving.

You can wait until the streets of McHenry are icy enough, or slippery enough, to test your brakes and tires in a real-world environment. Failing that kind of test has some potentially serious ramifications. On the other hand, have your brakes and tires checked by a qualified auto repair technician is virtually harmless.

Having your brakes and tires checked at a qualified auto repair shop will help you to avoid the heart-pounding excitement of an icy panic stop. Instead, you can hang out in the waiting room while an auto repair technician safely brings you up to date on your car’s condition. At many auto repair shops, such as at Performance Unlimited in Ringwood, the waiting rooms are clean, there’s coffee and television to watch. Beats a ride in an ambulance any day.