A puncture can be one of life’s greatest irritations: a perfectly operational vehicle, but one tyre has stopped your journey! No one wants a smooth ride to be halted by an unexpected tyre breakdown especially if you are driving in major UK areas like London, Birmingham, Nottinghamshire or even towards Scotland.
Here are some car tyre care dos and don’ts to make sure that all your journeys are uneventful and go as planned.
DON’T Donut!
‘Donuts’ refer to the marks left on the road surface when the handbrake is deployed and the accelerator depressed. This forces the car around in a circle, pivoting around the brake and leaving a circular streak of burned rubber. Obviously, this is not good for any part of your car, but it is your tyres that will suffer the most. Any kind of rough driving is less than ideal, ranging from stunts like donuts (usually perpetrated by young drivers wanting to show off) to simply being unmindful of the state of the road beneath your tyres. Be aware of your tyres when you drive and they will reward you by lasting a long time.
DO Check Your Tyres
Get into the habit of checking your tyres once a month or so and before every long journey. Look for signs of damage, cracking and shrinkage that could be a sign that your tyres are aging, and to see if there are any indications of uneven wear. If you begin to see a lot of worrying signs, do replace your tyres promptly. Moreover, you can also buy tyres in Kirkcaldy, by booking them with Fife Autocentre. Replacing your tyres on time will save you from trouble later.
DON’T Mix and Match
Tyres work best when they are in matching pairs. Ideally you should try to buy all four tyres at the same time, but as long as the two front tyres match one another and the two back tyres match one another this will be fine. What is not recommended is having one tyre on the front left while the front right tyre is from a different manufacturer – and the back two tyres from two different manufacturers again – as the significant differences in performance levels can wreak havoc with your car and cause excess wear and tear.
DO Inflate Tyres Properly
Legally, your tyres must be inflated to within the narrow range recommended by your tyre manufacturer. This is because tyres are carefully engineered to work until the optimal inflation range. Under- or over-inflated tyres mean that your car will not work as intended and that the tyres will not grip the road in the right way. In extreme cases, incorrect inflation can lead to your tyres becoming damaged and failing – possibly while you are in traffic putting you and other road users in danger. This issue is so important that it was added to the MOT checklist in 2018.
DON’T Overload Your Car
Tyres and cars both come with a maximum weight limit and it is important that you know what this is and do not exceed it. Overloading your car puts excess pressure on the engine and all the other moving parts as well as subjecting your tyres to more weight than they are designed to carry. If you have a lot of weight to transport, consider hiring a car with a bigger weight limit or splitting the burden between two trips.
DO Rotate Your Tyres
Tyre care should be ongoing throughout the life of your tyre. Tyres wear unevenly, with the front tyres and the outside edges suffering from more wear than the back tyres and inside edges. Switching the tyres around: back to front and side-to-side – allows for the tyres to wear evenly, and they can be rotated regularly until they need to be replaced. This simple practice can make your tyres last, effectively, twice as long as they would if you did not rotate them.
