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#1 Wed, 04/03/2015 - 14:28

Tyres....

Today I noticed that my tyres looked a little flat. I realised that I had not taken the time to check them for ages.... Like many people, I probably rely upon the garage to do this when the car is serviced, but I suspect that they didn't do it last time. My only excuse is that my tyres are low profile jobs, so it's actually a little harder to detect visually if they are low on pressure.

Anyhow, checked them at the service station and was shocked to find that they were way down. Closer to 20psi (140kPa) rather than 32psi (220kPa). Now, fuel efficiency is reduced by one percent for every 20 kPa of under-inflation (http://www.maic.qld.gov.au/forms-pub...). Mythbusters found that tyres underinflated by 15% used 1.2% more fuel (http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/my...)

I did some rough calculations, and worked out that my under inflated tyres would have been making my car use about 4% more petrol than it should which in my case works out to roughly $64 per annum for fuel. So. Worth checking your tyre pressures! It only took me a couple of minutes to do at the local service station. Although the fuel savings may not be huge, proper tyre pressures will also ensure your tyres will last longer (saving money) as well as make your car handle better and (frankly my biggest concern) in turn be safer.



ninhursag's picture
  ninhursag
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Sat, 18/04/2015 - 13:01

Good tip but most manufacturers advise lower pressures for stability, braking safety and comfort reasons. There's also some study suggesting lower tyre pressures slow down the wear on shocks and prolong car's life in the long term.

I guess there's always a trade off with everything in life.



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Sat, 18/04/2015 - 14:05

dsharp wrote:
Good tip but most manufacturers advise lower pressures for stability, braking safety and comfort reasons. There's also some study suggesting lower tyre pressures slow down the wear on shocks and prolong car's life in the long term.
I guess there's always a trade off with everything in life.

True, but the point I guess I was making was checking that your tyres were not way underinflated. Some people crank up the pressure far too much to save fuel, but the result is issues with stability, safety, comfort and wear on the suspension as you noted. Usually there is a safe range the manufacturers will recommend. If your tyres are outside that range there can be issues - too much and the outside of the tyres don't touch the ground so you have less stability/grip. If the pressure is too low then the middle of the tyre doesn't touch the ground with the same issue with grip etc. In both cases the tyre will wear out faster. Too little air also makes the sidewalls flex more and get hot and can lead to tyre failures/blow outs. So the key is to stick within the manufacturer recommendations for pressure, and check regularly, to make the tyres last as long as possible as well as to make sure they are safe! :-)



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Tue, 07/07/2015 - 21:07

You share information about tiers is Tyres is very useful for me. I want to learn more information about different kinds of tyres.



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Tue, 07/07/2015 - 23:25

vivekhello4 wrote:
You share information about tiers is Tyres is very useful for me. I want to learn more information about different kinds of tyres.

Huh?



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Thu, 09/07/2015 - 20:56

Like cars, trucks and buses.



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