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Ten Commandments for Preventive Car Tire Maintenance

By: Barney Garcia 1. Tire Pressure Check: Tire pressures should be routinely checked on cold tires, including spares and caravan (or trailer) tires. It’s a bad practice to let out air or ‘bleed’ air from the tires when they are hot (Just after a drive or so!) . Recommended pressures have been calculated by taking cold tires into account and hence tire pressures show a higher value when hot.

2. If any or most part of the tread is worn out, it is time to replace the tire. Sometimes it might be prudent to change and then for a tire rotation cycle. It helps if you can check with your local automotive technician and then do as he recommends. The check must always extend to all the tires, including spares and auxiliary ones.

3. Check for wheel balancing and alignment regularly since irregular wheel alignment can cause considerable damage to the tires and also hamper driving efficiency by altering handling characteristics of the car.

4. The insides of the tires must be scrutinized thoroughly in case of impacts due to pot holes or other obtrusions or in the case of punctures.

5. While parking the car, avoid parking on patches of oil, gasoline, diesel, lubricants and other such solvents as they are bound to damage the tires.

6. Tires tend to last longer when proper speeds are maintained and are loaded appropriately. Unduly loading the vehicle and driving at higher speeds than recommended can be dangerous and might damage the tires beyond repair.

7. Follow the tire rotation cycles as close to those recommended as possible. This affects tire life.

8. Tire life also depends on road surfaces, driving habits and style and speeds. So it might help if you can make sure that the surface you drive on are commutable and that you drive at optimal speeds and go easy on the handling part.

9. Use recommended tools to load and unload tires on axle end shafts or rims. Check for damaged or bent rims while loading tires and use proper tools while doing the same. Non compliant tools can only mar and damage the tyres and are sometimes even dangerous to work with.

10. General tire condition has to be checked regularly by rated experts for increased life and safety of the car tires. Unsafe car tyres would only mean suicide and there is no reason to be living on edge with something as negligent as not checking for the safety of your vehicle’s tyres.