Other sections in this guide
- Overview
- Car tyre wear and tear
- Car tyre safety
- Check your spare tyre
Servicing and maintenance Car tyre wear and tear
How to look after your car's tyres
Regular pressure checks help to prevent tyre wear
Drive carefully
How you drive affects how long even the best car tyres last. Avoid harsh braking, rapid acceleration and fast cornering as all of these will cause car tyres to wear quickly. Consider taking some advanced driver training to reduce wear and tear, not only on your tyres, but on your car as a whole, potentially reducing car maintenance requirements overall.
Town driving most hazardous
Towns are hazardous places for car tyres. Road humps and mini roundabouts can increase car tyre tread wear – the road humps can cause more rapid shoulder wear, while repeatedly steering round mini roundabouts can increase tyre scrubbing of the tread blocks.
Avoid hitting kerbs and pot-holes. Impact damage can be caused inside the structure of the tyre and maybe invisible on inspection. Unseen damage like this can still lead to premature tyre failure, say in the form of a blow out.
Watch out if you kerb your lovely alloy wheels
If you have hit a kerb, makes sure you haven't damaged your rims. Cosmetic damage to a once pristine alloy wheel might be annoying, but if you've scuffed the rim, check it hasn't caused sharp or rough edges near where the tyre fits the rim, as this could lead to a tyre failure. Get any damage repaired at once (even if it is no more than minor scratch removal) and make sure you re-balance the wheel afterwards.
Tyre damage is far more likely to happen in winter conditions. The increased risk of damage is due to several factors, with examples including increased debris on winter roads, damage-causing obstacles being obscured by snow, increased surface damage (pot holes etc) and the potential for drivers to skid out of control, potentially hitting kerb stones or other obstacles.
The winter tyres option
Many of the best winter tyres can be purchased with reinforced sidewalls. If you are considering winter tyres, reinforced ones can offer increased resistance to punctures, but the stiffer carcass construction may mean ride comfort will be adversely affected.
Check your tyres
No matter which tyre makes you have fitted - cheap tyres or premium brands like Bridgestone or Continental, Goodyear or Michelin or maybe Pirelli or Yokohama, it's important to check your car tyres regularly for excessive or uneven wear. Remove any stones or debris that might be wedged in the tread of the car tyres.
Look for cuts, lumps or bulges in your car tyres, as this can be a sign of imminent failure. Seek expert advice as soon as you see any such signs on your car tyres.
If you accidentally hit a large pot-hole, raised man hole cover or kerb stone at anything higher than walking pace and you think damage could have occurred, first inspect the tyre for visible damage, and if in doubt, ask an expert to check it.
Check tyre pressure
Every two weeks, and before long journeys, check the pressure of each car tyre – including the spare tyre. Check your car's handbook for the correct tyre pressure.
If your tyre pressures are too low, you'll use more fuel, and cause excessive wear to the edges of the car tyres, which will shorten their life.
An under-inflated tyre will also be inclined to overheat during use (because of increased frictional forces within the tyre sidewalls). This can also lead to premature failure.
Over-inflation of car tyres can cause unpredictable handling and accelerated centre tread wear. It also places the internal structure of the tyre carcass under excessive strain. At the extreme, a high speed impact (pot-hole, raised drain cover or kerb strike) could result in a blow out.
The pressure should be checked before you drive the car, when the car tyres are cold. Definitely don’t adjust the pressure after a long or high-speed drive - doing this against a tyre gauge reading will lead to your tyres being under-inflated, as the higher temperature of the air inside the tyre will be at a proportionally higher pressure.
If your car is heavily laden, tyre pressures will need to be increased to compensate.
Read the Which? tyre pressure gauge reviews.
