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Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Maintaining Right Tire Pressure Is A Large Money Saver

By Ajay Dawgan


Lots of car drivers have fun looking after their vehicles to be sure that mud and road film are cleaned off regularly. You will find that they always book their cars in a garage right before a service is due in line with the manufacturer's schedule. And many people will even spend the whole Saturday detailing the lining of their cars to try and have them looking new. But one thing that generally seems to always get forgotten about is examining the tire pressure. Proper tire pressure is an important part of car maintenance and this article will discuss it in additional detail.

Tire pressure issues arise from two main reasons: too much pressure in the tire or too little pressure in the tire. Need to know how much the right tire pressure is for your kind of car? Just check with the owner's manual or there perhaps a handy label stuck on the driver's side door pillar with the correct figures. The tire pressure you can see on the tire itself is in fact the maximum amount of pressure that the tire can hold. It's not always the proper tire pressure for your car. So make sure to check your users manual to see exactly how much pressure your tires should have.

Placing too much pressure on your tires cuts down on the amount of tire tread that is touching the road surface. As your car has less contact and traction with the road surface, it can be less responsive to steering wheel inputs. This becomes most noticeable in wet situations or on snow and ice when the likelihood of an accident are greatly increased. Which in fact can result in injury to yourself and your passengers. But will almost undoubtedly result in your car going to the garage to get fixed, which can end up costing a great deal of money.

Also you don't want to have far too little pressure inside your tires as this will begin to show on the sidewalls of the tires. Of course, your tires are not made to run in this condition and the flexing of the soft tire as the wheel revolves generates heat which will significantly shorten tire life if not result in a sudden blow out. This in turn could develop into a tow expenses.

It's not just on safety grounds that you ought to maintain your tires at the right air pressure - it has an economic reason too because correctly inflated tires use less gas. As stated previously, decreased pressure tires put a bigger area of rubber onto the asphalt and it makes your engine work more difficult to push against the increased resistance. Consequently you use more gasoline per mile traveled. Any additional drag due to the running on improperly inflated tires can cut your miles per gallon figure by as many as 10 per cent which will hit you in the pocket.

All tire pressure numbers ought to be measured when the tire is 'cold' so either check your pressures first thing in a morning after the car has stood overnight or at least wait a few hours after it has been used on a lengthy journey. Whenever driving the tires get quite warm over time and air pressure readings will seem higher than they really are. The tire pressures really should be checked once a week. Repeat this and continue with the tips given above and you will get better mpg, save money and stay safe on the roads.




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