Fit For The Road: Keeping Car Tyres In Shape

Unlike on 'Who wants to be a millionaire', your car tyres are your lifeline in the life or death sense. Their four contact patches, their 'footprints', are all that are keeping you and a tonne or more of moving metal away from a close encounter with the passing scenery or worse, with a moving 18-wheeler. Unfortunately, many drivers feel their tyres are forgettable but the old adage about looking after you're tyres so they look after you is ever true.

Tyre pressures are the first forgotten chore. Car tyres lose pressure as a matter of course; it doesn't mean they're leaking. Arguably, the best way of making sure you keep your tyres at the correct pressure is all about money. Look at it this way: if your tyres are underinflated, they flex more, run too hot, wear more at the edges and have a shorter life. Low tyre pressures also create greater drag so you'll use more fuel. Overinflated tyres wear out the centre section of their treads sooner, which is also a costly event. Should you have a tyre that has an air leak, it could let you down. Here, the best case is dealing with changing a wheel. The worst case is a one-way trip to casualty after a tyre burst, so get the leak fixed. As you can see, looking after tyre pressures is a money-saver; consider things like improved grip and enhanced safety as a bonus.

Bad wheel alignment represents another hungry mouth gnawing at your disposable income. Misaligned car tyres can wear out well before the end of their expected service life and having this fixed is simple and inexpensive. More importantly, especially in winter, misaligned tyres work at odds with your car's steering and suspension. Result? The car is running inefficiently and the cost is in fuel and driver fatigue. Much the same applies to unbalanced wheels, which also cause vibration and increased wear.

Getting up close and personal with your car tyres periodically pays dividends too. You can check your tyre treads' depth by studying their wear bars. When these, normally buried in the treads' grooves, start wearing themselves, it's new tyres time. You can also run an exploratory palm around your tyres, seeking an embedded nail, cuts, lumps, bulges or sidewall cracks. All spell the need for attention and a good tyre bay will advise you about what needs to be done. Adding a visual tyre health check to your car washing routine is a wise move.

Tyre rotation isn't something that happens every time you drive away. A front-wheel-drive car, for example, gives its front tyres a great deal of work to do. The front tyres have to cope with steering forces, braking forces and the transmitting of power to the road. It's no wonder that on such a car, the front tyres need replacing more often; giving them a tour of duty at the rear of the car evens things out.

Lastly, treat your car tyres with sympathy. Think of it this way: you only ever see a racing car surrounded by tyre smoke if it's in trouble. Wheel spin, tyres yelping on corners and smoking, squealing stops are all very well in the movies but remember that stunt drivers (a) don't own the cars and (b) don't pay for their tyres!

Merityre are a leading UK independent supplier of car tyres. Why not visit their website at www.merityre.co.uk and see where you can buy your next set of tyres.