Tyre advice for used car drivers

Tag : Tyre Patches

Tyre sidewalls are a "mine" of useful and necessaryinformation, according to one motoring group, which has this weekpublished a guide on cracking the code.

According to TyreSafe, new and used car drivers in the UK are ignorant when it comes to the tyres on theircars.

It says the confusing mix of numbers, letters, codes and symbolsmean nothing to many people, but learning what they stand for canreveal useful, important and necessary information.

"The tyre is arguably the most important safety component on avehicle, only four patches of rubber, each no larger than the palmof a hand, are all that connects the vehicle with the roadsurface," TyreSafe says.

Its recent poll reveals that 80 per cent of motorists do not knowthe legal minimum tread depth and a large percentage do not knowwhat size of tyre they would need in the event of a replacement.

The leaflet Car Tyres and Your Safety is available to download fromwww.tyresafe.org and contains a guide to the information containedon a tyre's sidewall.

It explains the codes and symbols for tyre model and size, weightand speed rating and date of manufacture.

TyreSafe was set up 16 years ago as the Tyre Industry Council toraise awareness of the dangers of defective and worn tyres.
Since 1992 the number of defective tyres in the UK has fallen from20 per cent to 12 per cent.

© Adfero Ltd