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Originally Posted On: How To Look For Common Tire Problems | FactoryTwoFour

During the last few month’s your car may have been sitting idly on your drive, gathering dust, the tires may have started to go down and your vehicle may be looking a little unloved and uncared for.

So, before hopping back into the driving seat, revving the engine and setting your car in drive. You should check air pressures in your tires, charge the battery and give your vehicle a really good check to make sure that it’s roadworthy and ready to drive.

There are eight DIY car safety checks that you should carry out on your vehicle before you venture off on your road trip.

1. Check your dashboard warning lights.
2. Check the car battery to make that it is fully charged.
3. Look at the engine’s cooling system.
4. Tires and wheel alignments.
5. Look for signs of worn brakes.
6. Monitor steering and suspension.
7. Check the vehicles transmission, clutch and CV joints for any signs of wear and tear.
8. Clean the car interior for comfort.

Listed below are the top seven car tire problems you may encounter, which can impact on the safety and performance of your vehicle.

• Check to make sure that your tires are within the legal tire depth limits, do not drive on illegal tread depths.
• It is essential to deal with over or underinflated tires.
• Replace unevenly worn tires, inspect your rims and tyres.
• You should replace bulging tires and cracks in tire walls.
• Replace tires with slow punctures, as this could cause the tire to blow out damaging your vehicle.
• Misaligned tires can cause tire wear.
• Check for camber wear.

You should check your tire pressures regularly to make sure that they are not over or under-inflated.

• To resolve over-inflated tires, you will need to let out some air from the tire until they are at the recommended tire pressure level.

• To solve the issues of an under-inflated car tire, it may be more at risk to wear and tear, to overheat, and this will ultimately lead to an increase in fuel consumption.

You should replace tires that are damaged and look at ways to recycle.

A tire is an intricate work of art, made up of many processes and hours of manpower. The tires we make today are a significant improvement on the wooden tires of yesteryear.

Modern tires are made up of 19% natural rubber and 24% synthetic rubber, which includes some plastic polymers. The remaining elements of a tire are made up of metal and other compounds.

To produce tires the rubber manufacturers use, a liquid latex mixture that is mixed with acids which reacts and causes the rubber to solidify. Large presses then squeeze out any excess water and form rubber sheets, the sheets of rubber are then dried in smokehouses, pressed into large bales before being sent onto tire factories to be modified and further developed.

Car manufacturers like Toyota, Nissan, BMW and Tesla, are all seeing the benefits of Green Technology and how it impacts on the environment. These companies are now using less petroleum and focusing on using biodiesel in their eco-friendly, low carbon emission vehicles.

Aspects of green technology are advancing rapidly, accelerating change. However, this has not yet been primarily picked up by some tire manufacturers. The current tire manufacturer leading the change is Michelin who built their first green tire in 1992.

Michelin’s recent breakthroughs in tire technology, focus on sustainability and reducing waste. These tires contain concealed treads that emerge as the central tire tread deteriorates over time.

The tires significantly reduce environmental impact, and this is also mirrored in other tires, such as the Tall and Narrow tire, currently being used on the Renault Eolab prototype. The tire is light and aerodynamic, ensuring that it provides this green vehicle with ultra-low fuel consumption.

So, what can you safely do with your discarded car tires?

As people are becoming more environmentally conscious, we are turning to other ideas on how to recycle old worn-out car tires and re-using old car parts in new, unusual ways, rather than clogging up landfill sites.

However, tires are not always shredded – gradually this is starting to change with some recycling centers now installing equipment that can process a whole car tire and turn the waste material into a tire derived fuel. Car tires can also be shredded in this way to produce fibers which can be used to make the surface of school playgrounds and play areas.

Alternatively, you could also consider some of these ideas to give that old tire or hub caps a new purpose in life:

• Chairs
• Coffee Tables
• Play Equipment
• Sandboxes
• Swings
• Planters
• Garbage Bins
• Wishing Wells
• Walls

These are just a small array of things you can with those worn-out old tires to learn more read here.

You can also bring beauty and creativity into your home or garden, by using old car parts in the art to produce magnificent sculptures made from hub caps.

So, your humble car tire is not just something that connects your vehicle to the road or a lump of rubber made by the hands of skilled tire makers. Tires and wheels live side by side like an old married couple. They are miraculous innovations going back to the dawn of the dinosaur and early cave dwellers technologies.

These beautiful creations can transport you to far-flung places. They help save lives when used on emergency vehicles, support our economy by keeping businesses moving and vehicles on the road.

Together they have captivated us from toddlers to grown-ups in toys and on our vehicles.

But what does the future hold in store, and how can they help create a greener world?

Only time will tell, as new technologies break new boundaries in the development of new sustainable resources, that reduce carbon emissions and allow the lungs of the world to breath again.