Prioritize tire inspection and maintenance when preparing your car for the holidays.
Over- or under-inflated car tires can have serious consequences, leading to expensive repairs or even accidents.
Preparing your car for the holidays, car tires are always a top priority. Photo: Nguyen Tuan
Why should we regularly check our tires?
In every maintenance process, tires are the first part of your car that you need to check because this is the part that is most affected and damaged on the car.
With daily wear and tear while driving, tires are stretched a lot. Since these are the direct points of contact between the vehicle and the road, it is essential to take good care of them. Drivers should check tire pressure regularly, as it is one of the most important parameters when caring for tires.
Driving on tyres that are set at the wrong pressure, or have lost pressure due to leakage, significantly affects the performance of the vehicle. In particular, the risk of an accident or unexpected breakdown is always present.
How often should tires be replaced?
According to the recommendations of car manufacturers, users should change tires after about 60,000 - 100,000 km. However, some types of car tires allow users to travel up to 130,000 km or only 50,000 km. When reaching this limit, vehicle owners need to change new tires to improve vehicle performance and ensure safety when participating in traffic.
Tire replacement depends on the tread wear indicator and the appearance of the tire surface. This can vary depending on the conditions of use and the road.
According to many auto technical experts, car owners should change tires after about 100,000km or about 5 years of use for safety during use. Regular inspection also helps car owners determine when to change tires. Tires need to be checked periodically after 10,000km or after 6 months of use.
For some vehicles, although they move less, the tires still have to bear the load and the impact of the weather. This affects the elasticity of the rubber to some extent. When the tire ages, the rubber loses its elasticity, leading to the phenomenon of tire hardening, the grip between the road surface and the tire is reduced, causing unsafe movement.
Additionally, using expired tires can cause a number of problems such as tire hardening, faster wear, and the risk of tire blowouts.
Over-inflated and worn tires can also cause air to leak from the tire, causing the tire pressure to drop, causing the tire to lose air quickly, the tire wall to lose stiffness and become more prone to bending, reducing grip and threatening driving safety.
If the tire is left flat for too long, it will cause deformation of the tire structure. If the vehicle moves quickly and causes excessive friction, it will increase the temperature of the rubber, causing the tire to wear faster and increasing the risk of tire explosion.
Time to check tire pressure
Pressure should be checked every time you fill up or every month or if the temperature changes suddenly to adjust the pressure to suit the actual situation.
In addition, in case the car is not moving and the tires are new, the pressure will also decrease about 0.7 PSI/month. Therefore, in case the car is not used for a long time, we should also check and increase/decrease the tire pressure accordingly.
Therefore, regular tire replacement is important to ensure vehicle safety and performance, even when the vehicle is not used frequently. When the tire shows signs such as: low tire pressure, worn tire tread, punctured tire, many cuts; bulging, deformed tire; many nails stuck in the tire, shaking steering wheel, tire usage time is over... the car owner needs to take the car to a reputable maintenance facility to check the tire.
