If you
still bought a car despite the horrific picture I portrayed in “Vehicle verification services in Pakistan and the risks
that remain” , and have identified the kind of behavior you
practice when it comes to car maintenance through “What car maintenance, ChaddoYar”, now it’s time
to move on and start doing some things right.
Whether
you own the most prestigious car out there with top of the line features or the
cheapest thing to commute from point A to B, its only contact patch with the
road is through one of the most important parts i.e. the tire. The correct
selection of tire would make one of the biggest differences in your ride’s
safety, comfort, economy, handling and for some the looks also. While we invest
quite heavily in getting the best car we can within the available budget and
getting accessories which would result in no added benefit compared to those a
good quality tire would, many people accord less importance to this area where
in fact saving some expense on it is a bad option altogether. If a tire
explodes while driving there is not much one can do to control the car and it
results in very serious consequences, so it’s a good idea to do whatever can be
done to avoid this beforehand.
Determining the Right size:
Knowing
the correct size of the tire for your ride is essential, it is printed on a
sticker affixed on the car’s body near driver’s seat. Any deviation
greater than 10mm in tire width would mean you would be compromising on the
car’s economy while putting extra strain on the suspension also, plus the wider
tire might not be safely mounted to the genuine rim leading to incorrect and
unsafe use. Moreover in order to move to wider tires, switching for cheap,
heavy and unsafe alloy rims is the worst thing you can do to your ride, so
please refrain from it unless you are ready to buy good ones which cost a lot.
As
shown in the picture, P215/65 R15 means that the tire is 215 millimeters wide,
the profile of the tire that is the height from rim to where the tire ends is
65 percent of 215 i.e. 139.75mm in this case, and the digits after the R (for
radial) depict the diameter of the rim on which this tire can be mounted.
As an
example, the new Honda city comes with stock 175/70 R15 tires. Switching to a
set from a good brand with specification 185/70 R15 while removing the euro
star that it came with would lead to added advantages with no harmful outcome
since the later are of really bad quality, although deviating more than that
would mean you are ready to sacrifice many good factors as mentioned before.
Sometimes a little deviation from the original profile for a slightly higher
one is required in order to enable the car to safely maneuver through the
potholes and speed breakers (pretty much car breakers) in the locality you live
in. A little deviation in the profile would affect the speedometer reading a
bit, but this would not be much and neither are they calibrated accurately in
most cases.
If the
tire shop owner tells you it makes no difference to jump to wider tires e.g.
195/65 R15 in this case, and you would not find the size you are looking for
anywhere, interpret it as he does not have them in stock and look elsewhere as
it would benefit you in the longer run after all. Size availability is a
problem for recent imports which have really different requirements, for the
local assembled ones this is not a problem.
Choosing the Right brand that suits your needs:
Apart
from the size, there are many other aspects related to tire selection. The
tread pattern, rolling resistance and rubber compound are the major ones among
those but you do not need to study all that just to buy a tire, generally the
appropriate brand selection would suffice. The premium brands available
in our markets are Continental, Michelin, Yokohama, Dunlop, Sumitomo, Hankook,
Kumho etc. But do check the exact series you are buying for example all Dunlops
are not the same, the best bet is to search for reviews available on the
internet and you would get many details for the specific series you intend to
buy especially the year that series was introduced. Plus the country of
manufacture also counts, a continental tire made in Europe would be expensive
than the one made in Malaysia so would be a Japanese made Yokohama or Dunlop
compared to a Malaysian or Indonesian. The product coming from the company’s
actual origin is mostly the most superior.
Building
on the example of Honda city, the options available in 185/70 R15 are many and
it comes down to what your priorities are and your budget, a set of Dunlops
SP300 made in japan would currently cost around Rs.7300 per tire while a
Malaysian made continental CC5 would set you back Rs.10000 per tire, while the
same CC5 made in Europe would cost Rs.12000 per tire. If you travel through the
motorway most of the time and quietness is a very high priority then spending
on the Continental’s makes sense, otherwise these Dunlop’s are really good
value for money. The Japanese made SP300 are again a bit expensive then the
Indonesian ones and from the other Dunlop series like Eco, LM 702 and LM 703.
Checking the Right details:
One
crucial thing that should be checked when picking up a tire is the
manufacturing date engraved on the sidewall, since rubber degrades over time,
dries out, cracks and eventually, fails to hold air or explodes. Even if this
extreme condition is not faced it would not work as a good tire and deliver a
rough ride, increased braking distance and other disadvantages and safety
risks.
The
manufacturing date is engraved as a four digit code e.g. 1203, the first two
digits are the week number (12th in this case) and the last two the year of
manufacture (2003 in this case). But it is very common in our local markets
that expired tires are re-stamped (which costs around Rs. 150) which is a
fraud, leading to expired stuff being sold at the price of new. Such
re-stamping though can be checked firstly by comparing different brands of
tires on the shop since all manufacturers have a different font of engraving;
if the font appears same for different brands available at a shop then
something is fishy. Rubbing the date code would also lead to the fake stamp
wearing off, this should sound some alarms. But the best way is to purchase the
tires thorough a reputed dealer, since the professionals would come up with
reasoning which might convince you to buy even the expired stuff.
The Right time to change:
If you are wondering
whether the set of tires on your ride needs replacement or not, first check the
tread wear indicator which is a small hump between the gaps in the tread shown
below. Even if the remaining tread is very close to this raised surface
it’s time to change the set. One can also check the tire for manufacturing date
if it’s more than five years old or for visible cracks / swollen sidewalls.
Every tire has a different tread wear and there is no rule of thumb here in
predicting when a change is due, generally passenger car tires are good for
fifty thousand kilometers if used properly and rotated every ten thousand
kilometers ensuring uniform wear for all four of them.
The not so Right choices:
A very
common sight these days is directional tires mounted in the opposite direction,
first of all there is no passenger car available here that needs such tires
since performance handling isn’t possible by just putting in a set of tires.
These cars are made to haul passengers and they need good comfortable set of
tires to match this criterion properly, so stick to the normal ones which are
also quieter then directional. But if you really have gone the extra mile
which was in the incorrect direction, please do read the arrow on the sidewall
to ensure that your passenger car delivers positive “performance” while going
forward and not in reverse.
Many of
the imports recently are coming with winter / snow tires and their owners are
adamant that since there is plenty of tread left on them, there is no need to
change. Well there is a good reason these are called snow / winter tires, they
work in THOSE conditions i.e. extreme winters where it snows. On normal roads
they are extremely noisy and result in horrendous fuel economy, so take them
off…..now!
While picking the most appropriate
tires for your specific ride, one very important factor has nothing to do with
the ride actually but the condition of the roads you mostly ply your vehicle
on. A tire that might provide the most comfortable ride on nicely paved road
might prove to be an incorrect selection as soon as you come across patches of
broken roads in dilapidated state,
the soft sidewall would puncture or even face cuts that are irreparable
(sidewall puncture lands a tire in unsafe category anyways). Therefore keeping
in mind the kind of roads we have to travel through occasionally, this aspect
has to be considered that the tire is able to withstand the abuse expected.
Which means that some really soft ones which brands like Yokohama offers in the
passenger car category might not be the best shot, unless you are ok with
getting replacements very often apart from other risks.
Do get one thing straight, putting in
extra wide tires in hilariously under powered vehicles like the locally
available ones and specially the “economical passenger car” thought of as a
“sports car” i.e. the civic; does not make them look cool! It is unwise to
start from and only leads to you paying more for the tires in the beginning and
bad fuel average in the longer run apart from other increased maintenance costs
and terrible lack of comfort. So stick to the proper size and reap the benefits
that the car has to offer as per its intended function instead of sacrificing
on them for some assumed ricer advantages. Low profile tires are not meant for
these underpowered passenger cars, it is like making a baby wear DMS boots (the
ones that soldiers wear) to make him look tough. Neither would the baby be
extremely uncomfortable with moving in them while they hurt him, those who look
at him would curse you instead of appreciating the intent that you had.
Since
this was meant for novices, things like speed, load and temperature ratings
were skipped; these things usually are not required to be checked when buying
passenger car tires from good brands. For any suggestions you can leave a
comment which would be answered as per my best judgment, drive safe and stand
up for tire rights :-). FeamanAllah
