Car Tyre Safety

The Essential Car Tyres’ Safety Checklist

Checking the tyres of your car can help to prevent accidents occurring on the road. Faulty tyres may not just be illegal to drive on – they can cause you to swerve in the event of a blowout or could even mean that your braking distance is increased, making it difficult to judge the right amount of space to leave in front.

Tyres need to be checked regularly and this is not a matter you should put off or leave to a mechanic to do annually during your car's MOT. All of the steps in this checklist can be done by a driver and they do not require any specialist know how or mechanical expertise. 

Check the Tyre Pressure

All too often tyres are not in a good roadworthy condition simply because they are set at the wrong pressure. Under-inflated tyres will mean that lateral pressures exerted on them from the road's surface are not managed properly and the steering will not be as responsive as it should be, as result. Furthermore, under-inflated tyres wear down in certain areas and they cost you more money in fuel because they create greater rolling resistance. Likewise, over-inflated tyres are just as bad for safe driving. Therefore, check your tyres about every 5,000 miles or so.

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Inspect the Tyre for Bulges and Cracks

Give the side walls of your tyres an inspection every now and again. In good light conditions, you might detect cracks or bulges in the tyres. Either problem can result in unwanted consequences, when travelling. They highlight a problem with the tyre's compound, so driving on a cracked or bulging tyre usually increases the chances of a blowout.

Check for Tyre Tread Wear

Bald tyres are illegal, but a tyre does not need to be completely bald before it is against the law to drive on. The simplest way of checking the tread of a tyre is to insert a twenty pence piece side-on into the groove of a tyre. If the rim of the coin disappears from view within the groove then the tread is deep enough to be street legal. Remember that you need to check all the grooves on the tyre from the outside to the inside and all the way around the circumference of the tyre. This will mean that you need to roll the car forwards a little in order to inspect the section of tyre that was previously in contact with the tarmac.

Check Tyre Compatibility

Although you do not need to have all your car's four tyres made by the same manufacturer, or to be the same model, they do need to be compatible with one another. Under the MOT rules, this means that the front a rear tyres need to be similarly sized. The tyre must also be fitted to a legal wheel which means all of its nuts must be fitted and that the wheel cannot have sustained any heavy damage either.

The Complete Car Tyre Safety

If you perform these checks and find out that your tyres fail any of these, you must head over to a reputed tyre dealer. To ensure the safety of car owners, Point S car tyre dealers in UK are offering free tyre checks for everyone throughout the summer! Take advantage of this offer and make sure the next time you head out, you and your family are absolutely safe!

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