Tyre maintenance is something many car owners take for granted.
To the majority of motorists, good tyre maintenance just means checking tyre pressures once a month and topping up when needed.
However, ensuring correctly inflated tyres is just one facet of tyre maintenance.
Here are a few tips to help you make them last longer.
1) Curb your aggression.
Aggressive driving is the surest way to shorten your tyres’ service life.
Hard and sudden acceleration and deceleration (braking) wears tyres out faster.
Ditto for aggressive cornering manoeuvres.
Tyres with obvious wear on their “shoulders” or outer parts of the tread blocks are a sure sign of hard cornering.
2) Avoid kerbs and potholes.
If your kerb your tyres, you risk damaging them, your wheels and your suspension.
Part of good tyre maintenance also means avoiding nasty potholes.
If you drive into them fast enough, you could even puncture your tyres.
3) Go slow over speed bumps.
Many motorists think that speed bumps only affect their suspension.
We’ve seen worse – drivers who drive over speed bumps (especially those narrow and tall ones) with reckless abandon.
Before your dampers can even react to speed bumps, your tyres are already dealing with them.
Good tyre maintenance means going slow and easy over them.
Doing so gives your passengers a smoother ride, too.
4) Watch for uneven or unusual wear patterns.
Tyre maintenance requires drivers to perform visual inspections as well.
Do you see strange wear patterns, such as only one side of the tyres are getting worn?
This could be a sign that your camber and/or alignment may be off.
And if the wear is bad enough, you may have to change all four tyres.
5) Rotate your tyres!
The best way to ensure even tyre wear is to rotate your tyres regularly.
The minimum interval should be every 5000km. If not, ensure it is done every 10,000km.
Remember, if your car has mixed or staggered tyre sizes, you cannot rotate your tyres.
