Autocare’s Top Tips for Caring for Your Car Tyres

Are you getting ready for summer? As the weather gets warmer and you start to plan for the summer holidays and trips down to the coast, don’t forget about your car maintenance, in particular your tyres.

Tyre maintenance is an important aspect of looking after any car. Well maintained tyres are crucial for safety and ensuring the maximum efficiency that your car or vehicle is able to achieve.

Read our top tips now on how to care for your tyres enabling you to help preserve their condition and performance.

Importance of Maintaining Your Tyres

Why is it important to ensure that your tyres are in a good condition?

The surface area of the tyre which is in contact with the road at any one time, is only the size of your hand. Therefore, you are relying on that tiny area to safely connect your car with the road. If you think about it that is a lot of pressure on your tyres.

Maintaining your tyres will help with:

• Ensuring the safety of the driver and passengers
• Increases efficiency of your vehicle
• Improve comfort whilst driving

Check Tyre Wear

The first and most obvious place to start when caring for your tyres is to check the tyre wear by ensuring the tread depth is still above the legal limit.

A quick way to check your tread depth is with the 20p test. All you need to do is place a 20p coin in a main tread groove of your tyres and if the outer band of the coin is obscured by the tyre then your tyres are still within the legal limit. If the band is visible or nearly visible then you should change your tyres as soon as possible.

Ensuring that you have tyres with a legal tread depth will give your tyres and car the maximum traction and grip with the road.

Monitor Your Tyre Pressure

Our next tip for looking after your tyres is to monitor your tyre pressure also known as Psi. You will be able to find out the Psi for your tyres in your car manual or checking the sticker on the inside of your fuel cap.

Checking your tyre pressure is important as it can protect your tyres against increased wear, as well as reducing the risk of losing control of your vehicle.

So, when should tyre pressure be checked? We would recommend checking your tyre pressure once a month, and definitely before a long journey.

One crucial thing to remember is to check your tyre pressure when they are cold; so before you start a journey or at least 2 hours afterwards to ensure you get correct measurements.

Reduce Tyre Wear with Correct Wheel Alignment

If you’re wondering what can cause excessive tyre wear, it might be time to check your wheel alignment. You can easily change the alignment of your wheels just by bumping into a kerb or hitting a pot hole. Not only does incorrect wheel alignment decrease handling ability but it will increase the wear on your tyres.

When you go to get your tyres changed we would recommend getting your wheel alignment checked at the same time as this will ensure that your new tyres will last longer.

Protecting Your Spare Tyre

It isn’t just your in-use tyres that you should be caring for, you need to ensure that you keep an eye on your spare tyre too, as you never know when you may need it.

Here are some pointers for storage of tyres that are not in use:

• Don’t store your tyre in a stack or under heavy objects for long periods of time
• Keep tyres away from flames or other sources of heat
• Store in a well ventilated and dry area which is away from direct sunlight and precipitation
• Keep away from any object or substance with the potential of damaging the rubber

Future of Tyre Care

As vehicular technology develops more and more, we have been wondering what the future holds for car tyres as we know them.

With driverless cars already in testing stages we found an article following the introduction of a spherical concept tyre at the Geneva Motor Convention.

These spherical tyres have the ability to respond to wet weather by softening for extra grip, they can move in multiple directions and are customised based on your location and driving habits.

As these tyres have a larger contact area to the road, they are much safer than our standard tyres. In addition they have sensors which check the wear of the tyre for you and because they are suspended by a magnetic field they can reposition to optimise the use of the tyre.

All very clever really!

Is It Time to Change Your Tyres?

Your tyres are the primary link to the road so it is crucial that you ensure you care for them and replace them as required.

Need tyres in Chepstow? If you think that it is about time you changed your tyres, contact us today on 01291 627137 to talk to our expert team about our range of tyres that we have available as well as book an appointment to get them changed. Alternatively check out our website to find out the details of our tyre fitting service for cars and vans.