Let’s be honest – tyre maintenance can be annoying and boring unless you love spending your weekends working on your car.
But however boring the task might be, regular maintenance of your tyres is important to ensure a smooth ride and to avoid any unwanted accidents. In brief, you need to maintain your car’s tyres regularly as a safety precaution.
With that in mind, here are 10 tyre maintenance tips that you can easily implement to stay safe.
1. Check the Tyre Pressure
Even if you’re driving heavy-duty cars with reliable Subaru forester tyres, you still have to check your car’s pressure regularly.
Overinflated tires can be dangerous as fewer parts of the tread on your wheel will contact the ground. This will lead to a decreased amount of traction which is very dangerous when you’re driving fast.
On the other hand, if you’re using a tyre that doesn’t have sufficient pressure, the other tires will deteriorate faster than normal. An underinflated tyre will increase the workload on the other tires which causes them to overheat and wear down quickly.
This can increase the overall maintenance cost that could easily have been avoided if you regularly checked the tyre pressure. It’s recommended that you get your tyre’s pressure checked as frequently as once every month.
2. Rotating Your Tyre
Rotating your tyres is the best way to get th emost use out of a set of tires. Rotating the tires essentially means switching up their placement and this is done so that all the tyres are worn down equally.
In a nutshell, the pressure put on all the tyres are not equal and that’s why the front wheels might seem to be wearing faster. Rotating your tyres also gives you a good excuse to check up on other aspects of the maintenance such as the alignment. Tyres should be rotated in patterns to extend their tread life.
3. Keep a Spare Tyre
Imagine yourself out on a long drive through a relatively remote area when your tyre gets a puncture. The tyre will not survive long enough to get to the next gas station.
Granted, modern technology has made our lives much easier when it comes to punctures but if you’re going somewhere where finding help is not as convenient, remember to pack a spare tyre.
4. Check the Tread
Just like everything else, your tyre tread can also wear down. As it wears, it will provide you with less traction, especially on wet roads. This can cause your car to skid and even cause an accident.
Therefore, you should check the tread depth on a regular basis and replace them immediately when they reach a tread depth of 2/32 inches.
5. Alignment of Tires
There are several signs of misaligned tyres. For example, if the wheel is not straight when the car is moving straight. Having misaligned tyres is one of the main reasons for disasters on the road. Some common causes for this are poor road conditions and road accidents.
It’s not that easyt to know when to check the alignment of tyres. Book an appointment immediately if your car is showing symptoms of misalignment. Furthermore, regularly checking it every two to three years, depending on the type of tyre, should be safe.
6. Do Not Overload
Both your car and the tyres have their maximum capacity stamped on them and they’re there for good reason. The excessive weight can cause the tyres to overheat and lead to flat tyres.
Maintaining and respecting the capacity of the tyres can help you avoid many undesirable circumstances.
7. Tyres for Each Season
Different seasons mean varying road conditions. Some seasons demand more tyre traction while others don’t. In climates where the seasons change drastically, it’s smart to change your tyres with the weather.
For example, winter tyres will give your car more traction to survive the ice and can help you avoid road disasters.
8. Replace the Entire Set of Tyres
When you notice that your tyres are wearing down, avoid replacing one tyre at a time. Your tires don’t work individually, they work together in unison. So, if you replace one tyre at a time, it will lead to uneven tread wear of the other tyres.
Furthermore, the new and old tyres will have different capacities and can also lead to punctures and other damage.
9. Inspect Your Car’s Tyres Regularly (H2)
Though this tip does not seem as impressive as the previous ones, it can actually save you hundreds of dollars in the long run. It’s better to be proactive and identify small issues before letting them build up and cause disasters.
Closely inspect the tyres and see if there are any objects lodged in them or if there is any substance on it that could harm the rubber.
10. Patience is Key
While going about your day, always allow an extra 10 minutes. Even when you see empty roads, you should drive slowly and maintain the speed limit. This will save your tyres from a fortune’s worth of expenses.
While traveling at high speed, your tyres will overheat to the point where they’ll start to wear faster. In order to prevent premature tread wear, be patient and maintain the speed limit.
Final Thoughts
Though tyre maintenance might seem like a bore to many, spending some time and money now can save you a fortune in the long run.
At times while trying to save a few bucks, some of us neglect issues such as mismatched tyres. Avoiding issues like this could potentially cause an accident.
In order to protect and preserve your car – and the lives inside it – you must make that small investment of time and money and regularly maintain your tyres. Drive safe!
Now that our household has bought a second car, I want to make sure that we maintain both of them properly to prevent any expensive repairs. I appreciate you bringing up the fact that some seasons demand more from tires than others because our area has some of the hottest heatwaves in the country so we may need to pay more attention to the hot season than regular to prevent tire blowouts and other similar problems. I’ll be sure to keep your article in mind and look for a car tire center where we can get regular replacements and proper seasonal tires. Thank you!