I heard yesterday that my brother had an accident on an empty-ish motorway after a tyre blew on his Cinquecento. The car spun, hit the central barrier and rolled over. He is fine, luckily. He is not exactly careful about checking his cars over on a regular basis, but it was a new tyre that blew, apparently. Knowing him, though, I doubt he'd checked the pressure recently, or taken much care with kerbs. I also doubt he'll be using a car that size on a motorway again.
Drive carefully.
Chris
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Many people today don't check their tyres - the most important thing on a car.
Simple cursory checks seem too much effort.
The amount of cars that come into our workshops with ilegal tyres is astounding.
Cuts, bulges, dented rims are all part of the normal 'damage' we see.
Some people are insistant on driving round on tyres which are down to the tread depth markers. They are just asking for trouble.
The earlier thread on skidmarks found on motorways is of a direct result from this ignorance. A blowout at speed will cause loss of control and ultimately, the car will end up hitting the central barrier (hopefully there is one) and the car could end up in a field or dyke off the road. Doesn't bear thinking about, really.
I take care of my tyres and just hope I never have the unfortunate incident of a tyre blowout, ever.
David
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David is right, I have customers who happily tell me they never bother with tyre pressures unless they look flat. Often with a smaller FWD car the rears don't look very flat until they get below 15psi, low enough to provoke a spin in an emergency swerve situation.
Both these customers have come in with pressures as low as 12psi at the rear and 18psi at the front!
David
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David
I recently took delivery of a 'fully serviced' used car from a franchised main dealer. A few weeks later it felt unstable on the motorway when there was a sidewind. I discovered to my horror that the rear tyres had 11 & 12 psi respectively.
Charles
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This is coming up in the newspaper column, together with a photo of my exploded rear tyre. It gave way between the shoulder and the tread all the way round. But if a tyre blows, it is sometimes the driver's reaction to this that causes the accident. The key is not to react. Don't touch the brakes. Check your mirrors. Signal to move over. Lift off. Move over to the hard shoulder as soon as traffic allows you to. Be very smooth with your braking. Obviously this may not work on high sided vehicles including some MPVs and on a lot of 4x4s so it's even more crucial that owners of these check their tyre pressures and tyre condition very regularly (at least once a week, preferably every few days).
HJ
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More sense spoken in these 4 posts than 40 on some previous threads. At the end of the day the only thing that keeps you in contact with the road, safetly in all weathers and driving conditions is the black things at each corner, or end on a bike. Neglect them at your peril. On all my cars and bikes I have always fitted good quality "branded" tyres of the reccomended sizes and set the pressures to those in the manual. When we went down to Lyme Regis for our hols I asked for info on cameras on our proposed route which many people helped with (Thanks guys), but I also made sure that the estate tyres where up to pressure for a load and speed. The spare I over-inflate and then let down as needed, I carry a digital pressure gauge which seems to give similar readings ot the gauge on my compressor. I only use a garage in extremis.
Safe driving.
Bill
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I persuaded my mother to replace her original tyres on her 17 year old auto metro. Mileage was 26,000 miles and the tyres still looked OK. Car spent most of its life in the garage - so protected from sunlight.
Years ago I was on the pavement when a passing bus burst a front tire. A 6inch chunk of rubber hurtled past me through Mr Sainsbury plate glass. Somewhat noisy and I was fascinated at the clean hole through the glass! The bus stopped OK and no one was injured despite the number of people passing by. Bus driver was rather shocked and annoyed.
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Andrew
You have reminded me of a tyre bursting on an HGV (sorry LGV) as I was overtaking it on the M62 about 10 years ago. The noise was very very loud, there was a huge brown dust cloud and lumps of alsorts hit the car. To say I was suprised would be an understatement, the only other thing I can recall is my wife saying "slow down, stop, oh god". I just stuck my foot down hoping to complete the overtake before it all went totally pear shaped.
Bill
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Yes, I try to take care of mine, but what about all those other guys?
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Charles
Which is why most hand-books recommend checking the tyre pressures weekly or more frequently!
Regards
Brian
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I'm amazed by the amount of HGV rubber one sees littering the motorways, huge chunks of it, and the fact that in 35 years of driving I've never seen a piece actually being shed. Is there an MOT for HGVs?
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Yes, Colin, HGV's most certainly do have MOT's, and from what I recall they are pretty strict too, I seem to recall that they even have to be steam cleaned.
As for rubber flying off the back of one I've witnessed it once in 25 years on the road. The complete tread stripped off a rear tyre on an artic just as I was overtaking, the tread went about 4 feet in the air, right where my windscreen was a few seconds before. A close one, and pretty damn frightening.
Cockle
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