Merityre Article Archive

“Now is the winter of our discontent”, said Richard III. In fact, he meant that the time of unhappiness was past. However, if you don’t check your car tyres – and your car – before adverse conditions arrive, you could experience a highly discontented winter.

Anyone accustomed to living in ‘this sceptered isle’ (Shakespeare again) will be more than familiar with what we are liable to encounter. Dealing with anything that puts our cars and their tyres under stress isn’t all that difficult so let’s start with tyres.

Any car tyre, but for those with studs fitted, will not grip on sheet ice. However, well-worn tyres won’t grip too brilliantly in snow, slush or even in wet conditions. So first, check your tread depth. This should be a minimum of 1.6 millimetres of tread in a continuous band around three quarters of the tyre. This is only the legal minimum but a tyre that’s down to the wear indicators won’t cope well in winter. You may consider investing in a set of winter tyres but in any case, replacing tyres for the winter is a valid action.

It should go without saying that your car tyres should be at the correct pressure. Checking this is any easy job that should be repeated regularly throughout the winter. It’s also worth running a hand over your tyres’ carcasses to check for bulges, lumps, cuts or the evidence of misalignment. Remember also that you have a spare tyre that you might need in a hurry. Check first that you can dismount it, particularly if it lives beneath the car. In some instances, it’s so long since the spare tyre has seen the light of day that its fastenings under the car have long since corroded into immobility. It’s better to discover this at your leisure than at the roadside in mid-snowstorm or hurricane.

Many people see what’s under a car’s bonnet as fit and forget items. Wrong! Having enough non-freezing windscreen washer fluid is fairly important but if your car’s coolant, oil and hydraulic fluid levels are low, you could be heading for major difficulties, if not disaster. They’re easy enough to check and your car’s handbook will tell you all about which fluids should be used and where they should go. Bear in mind that a poor battery will almost certainly let you down as the temperature drops.

Apart from letting you see where you’re going on a black winter’s night, your car’s lights also announce your presence and intentions to other road users. Ensure that each and every bulb or LED on the car is fully functional; this includes less frequently used lighting like front and rear foglights. Carry a full set of spare bulbs and make sure you have the tools and know-how to fit them, if necessary. As an adjunct to vision, your car’s windscreen wipers are extremely important. Examine them and if any are ragged, loose or ineffective, replace them. Should you find any of these tasks too daunting, remember that your local garage will be happy to carry out your winter checks for you.

Finally, what to carry on a winter journey. What you take along can be tailored to the conditions you might meet. For example, you might need a torch, reflective waistcoat or jacket and a warning triangle, and some extra screen wash fluid for normal journeys. Whether you need boots, gloves, a shovel and a thermos of tea depends on where you’re headed.

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Fun Q and As about car tyre technical terms.

Car tyres and technical terms are inseparable, which is useful especially for those who work with them. However, we mere mortals can benefit from knowing some of the jargon. Here are some questions, with multiple-choice answers. The right answers are below so see how high you can score.

1. What is ‘aquaplaning’?

A: A popular water sport involving skis and a hang glider?

B: What happens when a tyre can’t clear road water away quickly enough?

C: A technique used by a deep-sea carpenter?

2. What is ‘rolling resistance’?

A: The amount of energy required to overcome the static mass of a tyre?

B: Wartime fighters who adopted job-sharing?

C: The ability of a tyre to stop a car turning over?

3. What does ‘M+S’ stand for?

A: A well-known department store?

B: ‘Match and Slip’ as applied to tyre tread’s grip?

C: It denotes a ‘Mud and Snow’ tyre?

4. What is a ‘mid range’ tyre?

A: A tyre designed to run at a medium pressure?

B: A tyre that is of lower quality than a branded tyre but is cheaper?

C: A tyre that wears out twice as fast as a high range tyre?

5. What is ‘Mu’?

A: The coefficient of the average grip of a tyre on a wet surface?

B: A metric unit of tyre pressure?

C: The sound made by a taciturn cow?

6. What is a ‘Standing Wave’?

A: The hand signal given by a policeman directing traffic?

B: The sine wave shown on the screen of an electronic tyre-balancing machine?

C: A wave of deformation in front and behind the contact patch of a rolling tyre?

7. What is ‘Re-grooving’?

A: Cutting new grooves into the sidewall of a tyre to aid water dispersion?

B: Cutting new grooves into worn tread to extend the life of truck tyres?

C: An older person learning how to break dance?

8. What is ‘profile’?

A: The difference between the sizes of front and rear tyres?

B: A person’s self-disclosed information on Facebook?

C: The ratio of tyre sidewall height to the width of a car tyre’s tread?

9. What does ‘SST’ stand for?

A: It stands for ‘Second Set of Tyres’?

B: It stands for ‘Self Supporting Technology’?

C. It stands for ‘Slightly Slippy Tyres’?

10. What are ‘Harmonics’?

A: Annoying vibrations and noise causing discomfort for a car’s occupants?

B: Tyre noise ocurring only on certain road surfaces?

C: A 1960’s band that used musical saws?

11. What is ‘Hysterisis’?

A: The hardness of the rubber used in a car tyre’s carcass?

B: A female relative who tends to panic?

C: The resistance to deformation of the rubber in a tread block?

12. Why do some tyre fitters use nitrogen?

A: As an alternative to air for inflating tyres?

B: As a means of removing an old tyre from a wheel?

C: For a laugh in the tyre bay before a short sleep?

Answers

1B

2A

3C

4B

5A

6C

7B

8C

9B

10A

11C

12A

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Unlike on ‘Who wants to be a millionaire’, your car tyres are your lifeline in the life or death sense. Their four contact patches, their ‘footprints’, are all that are keeping you and a tonne or more of moving metal away from a close encounter with the passing scenery or worse, with a moving 18-wheeler. Unfortunately, many drivers feel their tyres are forgettable but the old adage about looking after you’re tyres so they look after you is ever true.

Tyre pressures are the first forgotten chore. Car tyres lose pressure as a matter of course; it doesn’t mean they’re leaking. Arguably, the best way of making sure you keep your tyres at the correct pressure is all about money. Look at it this way: if your tyres are underinflated, they flex more, run too hot, wear more at the edges and have a shorter life. Low tyre pressures also create greater drag so you’ll use more fuel. Overinflated tyres wear out the centre section of their treads sooner, which is also a costly event. Should you have a tyre that has an air leak, it could let you down. Here, the best case is dealing with changing a wheel. The worst case is a one-way trip to casualty after a tyre burst, so get the leak fixed. As you can see, looking after tyre pressures is a money-saver; consider things like improved grip and enhanced safety as a bonus.

Bad wheel alignment represents another hungry mouth gnawing at your disposable income. Misaligned car tyres can wear out well before the end of their expected service life and having this fixed is simple and inexpensive. More importantly, especially in winter, misaligned tyres work at odds with your car’s steering and suspension. Result? The car is running inefficiently and the cost is in fuel and driver fatigue. Much the same applies to unbalanced wheels, which also cause vibration and increased wear.

Getting up close and personal with your car tyres periodically pays dividends too. You can check your tyre treads’ depth by studying their wear bars. When these, normally buried in the treads’ grooves, start wearing themselves, it’s new tyres time. You can also run an exploratory palm around your tyres, seeking an embedded nail, cuts, lumps, bulges or sidewall cracks. All spell the need for attention and a good tyre bay will advise you about what needs to be done. Adding a visual tyre health check to your car washing routine is a wise move.

Tyre rotation isn’t something that happens every time you drive away. A front-wheel-drive car, for example, gives its front tyres a great deal of work to do. The front tyres have to cope with steering forces, braking forces and the transmitting of power to the road. It’s no wonder that on such a car, the front tyres need replacing more often; giving them a tour of duty at the rear of the car evens things out.

Lastly, treat your car tyres with sympathy. Think of it this way: you only ever see a racing car surrounded by tyre smoke if it’s in trouble. Wheel spin, tyres yelping on corners and smoking, squealing stops are all very well in the movies but remember that stunt drivers (a) don’t own the cars and (b) don’t pay for their tyres!

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