I love tyres. Obviously. Who doesn't? Here's what you need to know when you need to replace them.
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How to Save $300 - or more - on Tyres
Most people don't know this, but tread wear on your tyres accelerates dramatically when your tyres are under-inflated - even if those tyres are just a little bit under-inflated. One in four cars, statistically, has a dangerously under-inflated tyre - so there's a lot of potential cost-saving 'out there' on the road today.
This post is all about maintaining your tyres at the correct pressure: how to do it, what the correct pressures are, when to do it, and where.
There are several good reasons to keep your tyres fully pumped. Unfortunately, saving massively on fuel isn't one of them
Potential Fuel Saving: up to five per cent
Essential for safety, moderately useful for consumption
A modern radial tyre with 25 per cent of the air let out of it looks like
Are you thinking about fitting retread tyres? The simple advice is: Don't.
I tested retread tyres for Wheels magazine in 2003 in the publication's annual tyre test. It was enough to make me doubt any purported justification for making retreaded tyres legal.
Shockingly, the retreads I tested added almost 10 metres to the length of a wet stop from 100km/h (and three metres from 60km/h). That's about
The most common cause of a tyre blowout is the pressure being too low. Here's why:
When a tyre is properly inflated, the sidewall is fairly stiff. There's enough 'give' in the sidewall, thanks to the pressure, to absorb normal bumps. However, the sidewall really doesn't flex that much in normal driving.
If a tyre develops a slow leak, however, the sidewall flexes more and more. At least the bit directly under the axle, subject to the car's weight, does. And then, as the car rolls forward, a new bit of the sidewall bends under the weight, while the bit that was bent like this just moments ago straightens back out.