Top Tips For Pampering Your Tyre

Car tyres are tough, which is fortunate, as they have to be tough to survive

. That said, there are ways that your tyres can be given an easier life. Using them can save you money in the long run.

Pressure salesmanship

Running car tyres at the wrong pressure is a surefire way of shortening their life. Underinflated tyres flex more, which causes them to run hot, which makes them pensionable long before their time. Underinflation wears out tyre shoulders, and the lack of air pressure makes them less able to defend your wheels from assaults by speed bumps and potholes.

As car tyre pressure reduces, rolling resistance increases. Meaning? Soft tyres take more fuel to push along. Simples, as that meerkat says.

In its way, overinflation is just as bad. Tyres running on tiptoe sacrifice grip and ride comfort. Overblown tyres also wear out the centre of their treads. Paradoxically, over inflation doesn't enhance the tyres impact resisting abilities.

A weekly tyre pressure check is hardly onerous. Buy a good pressure gauge and find a forecourt that isn't so cheeky as to charge for air. You'll find information about the correct tyre pressures in your car's handbook and probably on a sticker on one of the car's door pillars.

A question of balance

When checking your car tyre pressures, you may notice little metal blocks attached to your wheel rims. These are balance weights; they're there for a reason. Anyone who's driven a car with a lost balance weight will tell you what the results feel like. A seriously unbalanced wheel will put the integrity of the fillings in your teeth at risk. Equally, anything more than minimal braking will make you wonder why the ABS has deployed, making the brake pedal vibrate like the firing pedal of an ack ack gun.

In practice, even a mildly unbalanced combination of car tyre and wheel will be costly. The increased level of vibration puts stress on several components. The tyres itself will wear faster. The need for the suspension joints to cope with additional strain will cause them to wear. Perhaps more noticeably, you'll feel the strain too; tyre imbalance increases driver fatigue.

Toeing the line

Wear and tear can put a car's wheels out of alignment. Misalignment makes cars suffer, and not only in an obvious way. Car tyres like to run straight and if they can't, they object by wearing out faster. Too much toe-in (cross-eyed wheels) makes the tyres' outer shoulders wear, and toe-out (diverging wheels) makes the inner edges wear. Apart from being costly, this affects steering sharpness and braking.

Having your wheels aligned and balanced when necessary is a lifesaver for your tyres. Moreover, it is far cheaper than new tyres and possibly a suspension and steering overhaul.

Lastly, drive sympathetically, or you'll burn out your tyres in no time. Make a point of inspecting your tyres regularly and remember that ten yards running flat will kill a tyre. Your tyres look after you; if you look after them, they'll continue returning the favour.

by: Louise Slee

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