5 Essential Car Tyre Care Tips for Indian Summers

Indian summers are relentless with temperatures often soaring past 45° C in many parts of the country and the road temperature being even higher. As a result, your tyres on your car generally bear the brunt of the warm temperatures. In fact, keeping an eye on their condition and regular tyre care is crucial for a safe driving experience. 

A series of regular checks is the best way to monitor your tyre’s health. To make things easier, we have compiled a guide that lists the essential tyre care tips you must perform in the summer to keep them working well and drive safely. Additionally, some of these tips will also help those buying old cars to assess the condition of the tyres.

1) Check Your Tyre Pressure

Tyre pressure is the most critical factor that affects the health of your car’s tyres. Every car has a different pressure rating which is recommended by the manufacturer. It ranges between 30 PSI to 35 PSI for most passenger cars.

You can easily find the correct pressure settings for your car by looking in its owner's manual. Alternatively, most car makers also print these figures on a plaque or a sticker, usually found on the driver’s door sill or on the inside surface of the fuel-filler lid.

How to Read Tyre Pressure Settings?

In most cases, a manufacturer will offer two settings and two units. Mostly, you will find one lighter setting which will show one or two passengers, and another fully loaded setting for a full load of passengers and luggage. 

You should fill the air in your tyres depending on your usage. If you commute everyday by yourself or with another passenger, you should stick to the lower setting. However, if you are undertaking a journey with a full load of passengers, such as a road trip with your family or friends, you should top up the air in your tyres to match the higher setting.

Manufacturers often mention the tyre pressure settings in two units, PSI and BAR. In India, PSI is the commonly used setting at most petrol pumps in India and is the one most people are familiar with. Therefore, it is advisable to fill pressure according to the PSI readings shared by the manufacturer.

When Should You Check Tyre Pressure?

The perfect time to check tyre pressure is in the morning, before the vehicle has been driven. A short 1 km drive to a petrol pump won’t make a big difference, but immediately checking your tyre pressure after a long drive will give you false results.

To understand this, it is instrumental to know that a manufacturer’s recommended settings are for cold tyres. Once a car has been driven around for five to ten kilometres, the tyres warm up and so does the air inside them, which increases the pressure. Therefore, a tyre pressure reading taken immediately after a long drive shall not match the one recommended by the manufacturer.

How Often Should You Check Tyre Pressure?

For good tyre care, it is essential to perform periodic checks. If you drive in urban areas, you should check the tyre pressure every week. However, if you drive over long distances, and more importantly undertake frequent multi-day road trips, we recommend that you check your tyre pressure once before starting your journey every morning. You should also utilise this time to adjust the air pressure according to the number of passengers in the car.

Invest in a quality tyre inflator which uses the 12V power socket in your car. Michelin, the famous tyre brand, is known for making quality air inflators with built-in gauges. Some models even allow you to separate the gauge from the inflator, so that you can use it to take readings without having to set up the inflator. 

2) Check for Tread Depth and Wear Pattern

The tread depth of your tyre is the amount of rubber available on its surface to generate grip. During the summer, one must actively monitor the tread depth and wear pattern for proper tyre care as hotter temperatures can lead to increased wear.

How to Check the Tread Depth?

It is relatively simple to check the tread depth of tyres. The recessed areas of a tyre’s tread has smaller indentations inside it. You must replace your tyres if the height of the remaining tread matches the height of this indentation. 

How to Check for Uneven Wear?

If a tyre is wearing out more on one side, and less on the other, it is a sign that something is wrong with your car. Simply turn your steering wheel to one side as this will allow you to easily inspect the surface of the tyre for uneven wear.

Rear tyre care can be trickier, but you can check the depth of the tread at different areas to check for uneven wear. You should also use this time to inspect for any unnatural cuts and bulges in your tyre. These can cause tyre blowouts at highway speeds leading to serious accidents, a phenomenon common in summer.

Most often, misaligned and unbalanced tyres are the reason for uneven wear. Therefore, your mechanic should inspect and adjust the alignment and balance of your tyres every three to six months, or depending on usage. Uneven wear can also occur naturally as the driven wheels undergo more mechanical stress, thus wearing out quicker.

To account for this, car makers recommend rotating your tyres at regular intervals. While each automaker has their own recommendations, typically rotating them every 8,000 km to 10,000 km is a good tyre care practice. You can find the rotation pattern in the owner’s manual.

3) Which Type of Tyre Works Best in Summer?

Tyres for a car are made of different rubber compounds. A soft compound tyre offers more grip, but wears out quicker. A harder compound tyre sacrifices some grip, but it manages high temperatures better, wears out slower and lasts longer distances. For Indians summers, harder compound rubber tyres are the recommended choice.

We recommend using hard compound rubber tyres which are available from all reputed tyre brands such as MRF, JK Tyre, Bridgestone, Michelin, CEAT and Apollo.

4) Driving Habits That Will Reduce the Stress on Your Tyres

Our driving habits are directly responsible for the amount of stress we put in our car tyres. Therefore, tweaking them can also play a major role in reducing the load on them, thereby reducing the build-up of heat.

Hard braking is the quickest way to increase the temperature of the front tyres, as it puts extra load on them. Successive hard braking scenarios can lead to the front tyres incurring excessive heat build-up, which can lead to tyre failure. 

Unless it is an emergency, it is advisable to use the brakes gently at higher speeds, especially on the highways. Certain road surfaces such as concrete exert extra load on tyres, thus increasing their temperature. A gentler driving approach over such surfaces reduces the build up of heat and also helps conserve the life of your tyres. Additionally, harsh acceleration and steering are other ways that can lead to heat building up in your tyres. 

5) When Should You Change Your Tyres?

The tyre care guidelines from all manufacturers explicitly mention that it's time to change your tyres once the tread has worn out, and you should not wait for it to go bald. Such tyres have a smaller surface area for the rushing air to cool it down, and thus extremely worn out tyres lose temperature much slower.

Always replace a tyres with a bulge or have cuts in them. Tyres can sometimes develop natural bulges, and these can lead to failure. However, if a bulged tyre is still under warranty, the manufacturer will replace it. This can easily be facilitated through your local tyre shop.

The biggest sin most drivers commit is using excessively old tyres. Cars that aren’t driven often don’t undergo tread wear, however, age is a crucial factor in tyre life. Most tyres have a life of four to six years. After which, the rubber becomes brittle and develop cracks over time around the side wall which can result in tyre blowouts. Never drive a car with tyres older than four to six years.