Plenty of car drivers spend an afternoon looking after their vehicles to be sure that mud and road film are cleaned off regularly. You will notice that they always book their cars right garage right before a service is due in line with the manufacturer’s schedule. Some prefer to go the extra mile and try to maintain everything in ‘as new’ condition outside and inside the car maybe spending half the weekend accomplishing this. Perhaps the wheel trims and sidewalls are kept clean, but how about the tire pressures? Appropriate tire pressure is a crucial part of car maintenance and this article will discuss it in additional detail.

You may apply the ‘goldilocks principle’ to subject of tire pressure – it may either be too much, just right or too little pressure inside the tire. Thankfully, car makers have made it simple to discover what the correct pressure is.

Either look at the handbook or get a sticker on the door pillar that provides the pressure in bars or psi. Keep in mind that the pressure you will notice stamped on the inner rim of the tire only means the maximum inflation pressure and will be considerably greater than the correct driving tire pressures.

Always verify the owners manual to find what is the correct amount of tire pressure and observe that front and rear pressures are often slightly different.

Over inflation of your tires will lead to reduced contact area in which the tire tread sits on the road. As a result, your car will end up less controllable which can be particularly dangerous when driving in the rain or on snow and ice making a severe accident much more likely. You may then jeopardize life and limb of yourself and some other car occupants. In case you are lucky and avoid injury, you will likely end up with a hefty bill to repair the destruction to your car.

A tire with pressure below the proper level has a tendency to spread outward so the sidewall begins to come into contact with the ground. Needless to say, your tires are not created 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 may lead you to lose control of your car and you’ll be dealing with recovery costs if you don’t carry a spare tire when you do come to a stop. Besides the safety aspect, maintaining your tires at the correct pressure can enhance the miles per gallon performance of your car.

As stated previously, decreased pressure tires put a larger area of rubber onto the asphalt and it makes your engine work tougher to push against the increased resistance. Consequently you apply much more gasoline per mile travelled. After all you could spend nearly 10% of a tank full of fuel in case your tires are below the manufacturer’s recommended pressures and your running costs will jump upwards.

All tire pressure numbers ought to be measured once 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 an extended journey.

Whenever driving the tires get quite warm after a while and air pressure readings will seem greater than they really are. It’s great suggestions to check your tire pressures weekly and by repeating this and heeding the details in this article you will keep yourself safe and cut costs.