Car tyres are an integral part of your vehicle, it is what
keeps your car on the road, they ensure when you steer left your vehicle turns
left and when you apply the brake pedal the tyres ensures that you slow down
and stop.
Checking your car tyres regularly and correctly could save
your life.
The best way to check your front tyres would be to turn your
steering on full lock, so that you can see Checking the rear tyres are a little
more difficult as you need to get down to the tyres level, you may want a mat or
something to kneel down on.
Things to look out for,
- Any nails, glass large stones or cuts in the tread, having someone to drive the car backwards slowly so that you can see all around the tyre.
- Tread depths in 3 places, inside and outside edge and centre, all needs to be above 1.6mm
- The valve, to make sure it is not excessively deteriorated, twisted or damaged by the wheel trim,
- The tyres side walls, both inside and out.
The image below shows a car tyres side wall, both inside and
out, the outside is fine, no perishing at all, but the inside is so badly
perished and cracked all around the tyre that it failed the annually MOT test,
for exposing the tyres cords, the crack was so deep that it showed the insides
of the tyres structure.
 |
| INSIDE SIDEWALL |
 |
| OUTSIDE SIDEWALL |
The owner was oblivious to the fact that his car tyre was
badly perished, as he had checked them that morning to ensure that they went
through the MOT. He was correct, all the car tyre treads were in good condition,
but he had not looked at the sidewalls, especially the insides.
This tyre could have ‘blown out’ causing the tyre to deflate
rapidly and vehicle to swerve across the road.
Just having your tyres checked once a year, with the service
and MOT is a long time for things to go wrong. Our tyre page has more details on
what to check for.
Check your tyres weekly, if in doubt go to a garage and if
there not safe replace them; replace them before it’s too late.
