Prioritize tire inspection and maintenance when preparing your car for the holiday season.
Over- or under-inflated car tires can have serious consequences, leading to expensive repairs or even traffic accidents.
Preparing your car for the holidays, car tires are always a top priority. Photo: Nguyen Tuan
Why should you regularly check your 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 will be stretched a lot. Since these are the direct contact points of the vehicle with the road, it is necessary to take good care of them. Drivers should check tire pressure regularly, as it is one of the very 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 replace tires after about 60,000 - 100,000km. However, some types of car tires allow users to travel up to 130,000km or only 50,000km. When reaching this limit, vehicle owners need to replace 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 tread surface. This can vary depending on the conditions of use and the road.
According to many auto technical experts, car owners should replace tires after about 100,000km or about 5 years of use for safety during use. Regular inspections also help car owners determine when to replace tires. Tires should be periodically inspected every 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 decreases, causing unsafe movement.
Additionally, using expired tires can cause many problems such as tire hardening, faster wear, and the risk of tire explosion.
Over-inflated and worn tires can also cause air leakage in the tire, reduced tire pressure causing the vehicle to lose air quickly, the tire wall becomes less rigid and more prone to bending, reducing traction 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 out 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 sudden temperature changes to adjust pressure to suit reality.
In addition, in case the vehicle is not moving and the tire is new, the pressure will also decrease by about 0.7 PSI/month. Therefore, in case the vehicle is not used for too long, we should also check and increase/decrease the tire pressure accordingly.
Therefore, regular tire replacement is important to ensure the safety and performance of the vehicle, even when the vehicle is not used regularly. 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.
