Image source: cssfirm.com
Tire inspection is very important as tires are the only contact between your vehicle and the road. Although tires today have become safer, they still remain a major source of accidents due to tire blowouts, tread separation, etc. Therefore it needs constant attention, periodic checks and proper maintenance for proper handling, better fuel economy, extended tire life and most importantly your life.
An important point to be kept in mind is that it is not tires that support the vehicle’s weight, but the air pressure inside. Most of us rely on visual inspection of tires to know if it is properly inflated or not, but to visually notice under inflation, it requires inflation pressure to reduce to about 50 % of recommended inflation pressure.
Under inflated tires not only increases safety risk, but it also increases fuel consumption as rolling resistance increases. If you think that over inflating it so that you get more time before the next air refill, you are mistaken, over inflation equally increases tire damage. So the aim is to inflate it to the recommended pressure. However visual inspection of tire for cuts, bulges, tread wear, etc., is recommended. This should be done on a daily basis (or at least once in a week).
Now, the vehicle’s tire pressure should be checked at least once a month (recommended two weeks), and I’m not talking about visual inspection but by using proper tire pressure gauges. The following pictures show the same tire with different inflation pressures, one of it is correctly inflated and the other under inflated (by 30%), can you identify them correctly? The geeks out there can try The Italian Job Technique too.
Image source: tirerack.com
Tough to tell isn't it? For the solution click here and below is an interactive tire pressure demo, move the cursor over the percentage bar to view the tire inflated to different percentages of recommended inflation pressure.
Flash movie source: tiresafety.com
However, most modern cars (if not all) are equipped with an electronic system known as Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) that helps you monitor air pressure in the tires. The whole point of this post is to highlight the fact that visual inspection will not help you determine if your tires are under inflated or not, for cars not equipped with this system.
So make it a routine to check your vehicle's tire pressure twice a month (or at least once) with tire pressure gauges.
