When it comes to performance and safety, your vehicle’s tyres are extremely important. Let’s think about it for a moment, your vehicle’s tyres are the only thing that actually touches the ground. Your tyre’s control your steering, braking and acceleration and without one tyre, your vehicle would be powerless, therefore it’s important that you ensure that your tyres are in top condition at all times.
Finding the right tyres
Many people tend to choose budget tyres for the most obvious reason of the cost-saving factor. However, it’s important that you pick your tyre’s based on those well suited for your vehicle as well as weather conditions. Choosing tyres based on a cheap budget can be a false economy as cheap tyres tend to go bald quicker, they increase fuel consumption and they may not grip the road as well as they should. In the long run, it pays well to ensure that your tyres are in top condition. Whether it’s motorway or countryside driving, you can purchase tyres to match your requirements and you’re also able to purchase tyres made from a tougher compound making them longer lasting and much better grip compared to budget tyres.
Tyre pressure
To ensure that your vehicle’s tyres have the proper air pressure, you should always use an air pressure gauge, which you can locate at your local garage. The air pressure in a tyre helps to divide the weight of your vehicle evenly so that the tyre is at its most stable. You should check your tyre pressure at least once a month as if you have over-inflated or under-inflated tyes, this can affect your stability, handling, stopping and cornering of your vehicle.
The bottom line is if you don’t have the correct tyres properly inflated on your vehicle, it will ride incorrectly. By maintaining the correct tyre pressure, you will ensure that your vehicle is much safer and more comfortable. Weather temperatures will affect your tyre pressure, for example, cold weather will cause your tyre pressure to drop, while warm weather will make them increase, so it’s incredibly important that you check your tyre’s periodically as part of good vehicle maintenance.
Tread level
The tread depth of your tyres is essential to ensure that your tyres are performing to the best of their ability. If the tread on your tyres is not at the proper depth then it can become difficult for enough water to be carried out from beneath the tyres, therefore increasing the possibility that you could lose control of the vehicle. To be sure that your tyre’s meet the legal specification, while in your local auto body shop for maintenance checks, have them check your tread depth too.
Winter tyres
Weather and the seasons play an important role in determining the suitability of your vehicle’s tyes. In the UK we tend to experience a lot of rain, cold and high winds, which many tyres are very ill-equipped to deal with, resulting in loss of traction causing slips and skids. If you do a lot of driving, it can be beneficial to put winter tyres on your vehicle as these will have a much better grip in wet conditions and are also more equipped at handling snow and icy conditions. Although there is no legal requirement to use winter tyres, they really do work, reducing stopping distances in the snow and ice as well as in wet weather.
