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Knowing how to maximize the life of your car tyres isn’t only a simple way of saving money in the long run. Looking after your car tyres also keeps you safe and legal; being neither can be very costly in more than a financial sense.

Run the tyres at the right pressure

This is a good starting point. Too little pressure wears the edges of the tread prematurely, lets the tyres flex too much and can cause overheating. Too much pressure increases the wear on the centre of the tread. Remember that, comfort and safety aren’t the only issues – running tyres at the wrong pressure is illegal.

Make sure your wheels are properly aligned

Misaligned wheels are another sure-fire tyre killer. Misalignment can make your tyres wear unevenly, wear the inside or outside edges and cause problems with both braking and steering. Moreover, a significant amount of such wear means you’ll have to throw your tyres away far too soon.

Drive sympathetically

 Your car may have traction control and ABS but you can still trash the tyres effectively despite them. How? By driving aggressively. Make sure you accelerate as gently as possible whenever you can and use the brakes carefully, not as though every stop is an emergency stop. Don’t forget that unnecessarily hard cornering shortens the life of your tyres. On a front wheel drive car, the front tyres wear more quickly because they have to transmit power to the road, and take steering and braking forces.

Drive slower

Consistently driving fast will wear out your car tyres sooner.

Choose the right tyres

You could get ‘long life’ tyres for your, which wear more slowly though they tend to be a little noisy. Tyres having a softer rubber compound will be nice and quiet and will wear more quickly. Always follow the tyre fitter’s recommendation of the best compromise for your needs.

Always keep your car under cover

All car tyres degrade over time. If you can keep your car in a garage, out of the sun, you can be sure your tyres will last longer. If you see a fine lattice of cracks has appeared in your tyres’ sidewalls after, say, five years, the tyres are unsafe and must be replaced.

Give your tyres a break

Remember that ‘traffic-calming’ measures shorten the life of your tyres but you can help your tyres out by driving intelligently. Always cross speed bumps slowly. Never straddle speed bumps. Instead, make sure that the only wheels on one side of your car pass over them. Keep an eye out for potholes, avoiding them where you can. When parking, make sure you never mount a kerb. Apart from making life easier for your tyres (and your wheels), these actions will prevent your wheels being knocked out of alignment, leading to wear – and possibly worse.

Using these proven top tips means your car tyres will last longer. This means you’ll save money by not having to replace your tyres before their useful life ends.

Have you ever noticed that tyres have moulded markings on their sidewalls? You’ll probably have spotted the maker’s name but does the rest mean anything to you? Can you tell what 205/70R14 88 T is all about? Perhaps not yet but understanding these codes could save your life. Why? If they show your tyres aren’t the right ones for your car you can arrange replacements.

We can start by breaking down the example above; the markings denote the tyre size, construction, and load and speed rating. How? Like this…

205 – This is the width of the tyre’s section in millimetres. The section 205 is a little over eight inches wide.

70 – This is the tyre’s aspect ratio, the sidewall’s height expressed as a percentage of its width. Here, the height is 70 per cent of the width. ‘Low profile’ tyres are fashionable so aspect ratio figures go as low as 30. Ultra-low tyres like this give tremendous grip but you pay for it, in a poorer ride quality and very little protection for your wheels against kerbs, potholes and speed bumps.

R – The next letter indicates the tyre’s construction. Here, R means radial.

14 – This next number is also simple. The figure 14 refers to the diameter of wheel the tyre will fit, in inches.

88 – Not so simple but extremely important. This tyre load index is a code for the maximum load capacity of the tyre when driven at its maximum rated speed. The figure 88 denotes a rating of 560 kilograms. Car tyres need to be correctly rated for load.

T – The last letter indicates the tyre’s speed rating. The letter T means the tyre can cope with extended use at a maximum speed of 118 miles per hour. The top speed rating is Z, which appear on tyres for cars capable of maintaining 149mph and above.

There are other tyre sidewall markings but most are for the attention of the tyre fitter. Markings show the tyre complies with EEC, ECE and US regulations. There might be an arrow symbol showing the tyres’ direction of rotation and there’ll be a ‘TWI’ mark indicating where the running surface’s tread wear indicator lies. There will also be a safety warning, perhaps the country of manufacture, whether the tyre is tubed or tubeless, and coloured markers showing the fitter where to fit the tyre in relation to the wheel’s valve.

All these are largely for the fitter’s information but there’s one marking you’re advised to note. The last four digits in the ‘DOT’ code reveal the tyres’ date of manufacture. Four-digit codes began after 2003 so if you see, for example, the code 3 0 0 8, the tyre was made in the 30^th week of 2008. You should never use tyres over 6 years old but a good tyre fitter won’t fit ‘new’ tyres that are beyond their sell-by date.

It’s true that checking your tyre markings could save your life, simply because underrated tyres could fail, especially under high speed/load conditions. The right tyres could save you something else –under-specified car tyres can invalidate your insurance.

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