Five ways to improve tyre durability
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Tyres are expensive and once you have invested a healthy sum in a new set of tyres, you will not want to risk needing to replace them before your budget has had a chance to recover. The good news is that even the most well-used tyres should last for at least five years, with care, and even longer if you do not drive very often or very far each week. Your tyres need to perform well on the road especially if you are a regular driver and driving in busy areas like Cambridge or even Yorkshire.
Here are five ways to improve your tyre durability even more, giving you longer to save up for your next tyre investment.
Regular check-ups
Just as we go for regular dental and optical check-ups, so too should our cars enjoy regular checks. Servicing will take care of most small issues, such as ensuring that the filters are clear and the various fluids are clean and topped up: they will also usually check the tyres and wheels as standard. However, in between times, you can give your tyres the once over, looking for signs of dryness and cracking, damage, distortion and even missing chunks of rubber. By checking your tyres often you will firstly understand what your tyres should look like, and how they naturally change over time. This will teach you to recognise alarming signs, so you will quickly notice when all is not as it should be.
Keep an eye on the tread depth
Tyres in the UK must legally have 1.6mm of tread on them over much of the contact area of the tyre. As well as ensuring that you remain legally compliant at all times, by updating your tyres as you need to – if you are looking to buy tyres in Wakefield, book them at Ossett Tyre House – you can also take steps to protect your existing tread. You can do this by avoiding sudden acceleration and deceleration, staying on well-maintained roads whenever possible and taking care when parking on curbs or off-road.
Change with the seasons
When colder weather arrives, we know that we should bundle up warmly, but we tend not to think about our cars – more specifically, about our tyres. Normal tyres are also known as summer or good weather tyres, and they are perfect for use in conditions above 7C. Below this temperature, however, the rubber begins to stiffen up and lose some flexibility. This new brittleness can make it more prone to cracking and breakage. Alleviate this risk by switching to winter, or cold weather, tyres. These work better at lower temperatures and are softer, which helps them to retain their flexibility even in freezing conditions. However, as soon as the weather warms up again, your winter tyres will begin to wear away much more quickly, so it is advisable to pop your summer tyres back on again. This might sound like too much palaver, but once you have made the initial investment into two full sets of tyres, simply switching them out is easily done – you can use the clock change between British Summer Time and Greenwich Mean Time as your guide if you are no good with ‘cold’ remembrance.
Drive sensibly
No matter what the occasion, what temperature it is outside, or what mood you are in, you should always drive at a moderate speed, paying attention to potential hazards and eschewing rough roads and bumpy tracks. This is the best way to maintain the integrity of your tyres and the entire car. Younger drivers in particular tend to delight in putting their car through its paces, seeing how fast they can get up to speed, applying the brakes abruptly, and even performing stunt manoeuvres like wheelies and doughnuts. All of these activities put a great deal of strain on your tyres and will almost certainly see you needing new tyres sooner rather than later!
Proper inflation
Finally, remember to keep your tyre inflation within the recommended range given in your car owner’s handbook. Modern tyres, belted, metalled and carefully engineered and fitted together in a way that old tyres were not, do not respond well at too low or too high a pressure. Save yourself from blow-outs, failures and excessive wear and tear on your tyres by checking, with every third or fourth tank fill, to see if the tyre pressure is within the optimum range.
