It never fails to amaze me how little attention people actually pay to their cars. Far too many of us seem to just jump in the car, drive (immediately, putting stress on the engine) to their destination and jump out, repeating the process for the return journey.
Tyres in particular are particularly important. The four fist sized lumps of rubber are after all the only parts of the car that are in contact with the road.
Modern tyres have what are called ‘wear markers’, which are little lumps of rubber within the grove of the tyre. When this rubber is at the same level of the rest of the tyre then you should switch the rubber for a new tyre. It’s extremely simple and is a feature included for your safety – so use it!
Remember, minimum tread depth for a tyre is, and I quote “A minimum of 1.6mm in a continuous band throughout the central three-quarters of the tread width, throughout the whole of the circumference” (The Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986).
When you buy a tyre it as usually got 7mm or more tread depth, so actually letting the tyre get to the minimum is not as safe as having new tyre’s.
If you do a lot of high speed journey’s like motorway driving, you don’t want to be driving on near minimum tread depth, particularly in wet weather at high speeds.
High speed causes the tyre’s to wear more, other reasons could be under or over inflated tyre’s, this causes uneven wear.
Over inflated causes more wear in the middle of the tyre, under inflated tyre’s wear on the outer edges first.
.Going into bends to fast.
.Braking sharp, (late Braking, caused by lack of forward planning).
.Sharp acceleration, (Boy racer style, wheel spinning).
Out of interest what tyre’s would you consider to be better wearing?
hi i write a few tyre related articles on my web blog. Roy is correct. the legal limit in the UK is 1.6mm across 3/4 of the tyre width from the tyre centre outwards.This law is now thought to be out of date for modern driving, most tyre manufacturers count 3mm minimum now, indeed Continental tyres have no sipes (the small slits that disipate water between the tyre and the road) this makes the tyre almost bald at 3mm.food for thought. Eric Roberts http://pellonautocentre.com/tyres.htm