How to Protect Your Car Tires from
The weather is cold and a few days ago a couple of my car tires got a flat. I had to drive home with little air in them because I was not going to wait for assistance on a 40°F day to change two cars' tires that should have been changed at the end of summer anyway. After all, the Nanny State has taught us well, as w must wait until after bedtime before boarding an airplane but there are no such restrictions for driving on under-inflated tires. And those front-wheel-drive cars?
Introduction:
Let's first take a look at why under-inflated tires are dangerous. This is best demonstrated by an experiment. Take two empty 2L plastic soda bottles fill one completely with water and seal the cap tightly, labeling it "full." Fill the second bottle just enough to get the bottom inch of the bottle submerged in water but seal the cap tightly, again labeling it "empty." Apply pressure to them both through squeezing or pounding on them showing that there is really nothing inside either one, but that there are only varying degrees of space between their exterior surfaces and their volume of air which has been pushed out by your applied force.
Now squeeze/pound on each bottle so you can no longer see any gaps between its inner surface and the surrounding air. Both bottles are now the same weight and contain the same amount of air. We all know that water is incompressible whereas air is very compressible. If you squeeze the bottle labeled "full" it will collapse, deforming into something like a lemon shape while still staying completely full of water. But what happens to the relatively empty bottle labeled "empty"? Since there is so little volume in an empty plastic soda bottle, when you squeeze or pound on it, you can feel its exterior surfaces cave inwards quite easily, even though there's no apparent change in weight.
So while both bottles have exactly the same weight at this point they do not have the same physical characteristics. One has far greater resilience against being compressed than does the other.
So what does this have to do with tires? According to Jaftim Cars - Used Cars Exporters, Many of the tire manufacturers know that motorists usually check their tire treads for wear by visually inspecting them, usually while the car is on a lift. They also know that most of us rarely bother to check our tire pressure unless we can see it leaking down, which is becoming more and more difficult with smaller and harder-to-see tire valves. So there's a problem: You can't really tell how much air you have in your tires just by looking at them or putting your hands on their exterior surfaces because they're not as resilient as a plastic soda bottle.
I've seen hundreds of cars over the years with under-inflated tires that look perfectly fine from outside but are so soft that they sag over time, especially when the car is parked. So if you're one of those who still check your tire treads for wear, try this experiment with three or four of them. If they feel squishy enough that you would hesitate to drive on them then put a little air into them and check them again in about 10 minutes. Odds are they will be quite firm by then because there's not much volume in most tires so any air leakage quickly equates to significantly less pressure! And while you're at it, stop checking your tire pressures with your hands but instead use an accurate gauge every month - even more often if you drive 100 miles or more per day - whether your tire treads show any visible signs of wear or not.
You can't tell if your tires are over-or under-inflated by feeling their exterior surfaces so learn to use a tire pressure gauge instead.