Walkers Tyres Safety Advice

Tread Wear

All too often, tyres have to be replaced early because of excessive tread wear cause by: under-inflation, over-inflation and incorrect wheel alignment.

Wheel Alignment

Wheel alignment, or tracking refers to the angle at which your cars wheels are set. A misaligned vehicle will either have its wheels toed in, showing excessive wear to the outer edge of the tyre, or toed out, showing excessive wear to the inner edge of the tyre, both drastically reducing the tyres life span.

Here at Walkers Tyres we offer tracking checks completely free of charge so you are able to catch any misalignment issues before they cause excessive wear or any irreparable damage to your tyres.

Incorrect Tyre Pressure

Tyre Pressure is usually measured in psi or (pounds per square inch). The correct psi is essential for road safety and to ensure you get the most from your tyres. Although the maximum pressure can be found on the side wall of the tyre, this is NOT the running pressure of a tyre. This is often found on the reverse of the petrol flap, or along the the inside of either the driver or passenger side doors.

A tyre that is over inflated will wear the center band out much quicker, reduce contact area on the road reducing overall performance of the tyre and resulting in a much harsher and less comfortable ride.

A tyre that is under inflated will wear the shoulders much quicker, increase rolling resistance and therefor fuel consumption. A soft tyre will also increase stopping distances and the addition flex in a tyres sidewall will result in unstable handling of a vehicle.

At Walkers we recommend checking your tyre pressures once a month.

An increasing number of vehicles are now fitted with TPMS or Tyre Pressure Monitoring Systems. These constantly monitor the pressure of a tyre and notify the driver of any imbalance

More information of those can be found here.