When it's time for new tyres, The FastFit Centre in St Helens is your first choice!
No-one needs to be told how important
tyres are to the safety of a car. Modern cars are full of driver assistance features which will tell the driver if they are leaving their
lane, or switches their windscreen wipers on after the first raindrop hits the windscreen, or even switches their lights on automatically if it's too dark. But there's no feature that tells you when your tyres are worn down and in need of replacement.
The legal minimum depth of a tyre's tread is 1.6 millimetres (mm), across the central three-quarters of the tread around the tyre's complete circumference.
We don't expect you to be getting a ruler out to check the depth of your tyres' treads, so you'll be glad to know there's another way of working out if you need some new ones. Read on for some advice from our
St Helens car repair team!
How old are your tyres?
First things first, you may have some very old tyres on your car. Imagine if you'd just bought a second-hand car but you'd had no way of checking the roadworthiness of the tyres. Here's a way you can find out if they're dangerously old.
If you can see only three digits and a small triangle on the side walls of the tyre, the first two digits represent a week of the year (so 1-52) while the last indicates a year in the decade from 1990-1999. If there is no triangle, your tyre is from the 1980s at the latest and needs replacing immediately.
Rubber wears down over time and as that happens, braking distances increase and traction on slippery road surfaces deteriorates. Adequacy in each of these fields is crucial for the safety of both you as a driver and also your passengers. As soon as you feel that something isn't right with a braking distance of how your handling of the car is affected in wet weather, get your tyres checked.
Apart from our advice about tyres from the 1980s and the legal minimum depth of a tyre's tread, there are no other hard and fast rules about when a tyre should be changed. If you know that the tyre has come into contact with a lot of kerbstones, or other collisions, or has been misaligned, we can fit new tyres for you in a flash. From puncture repairs to complete wheel refits, we do it all - and at an affordable price, too!
What you need to know about new tyres
- You need four similar tyres on your car, with a tread depth of at least 1.6mm.
- Be aware that the tyres can wear down over different periods of time. Just because one tyre is fine doesn't mean all four are!
- The code and triangle are a handy point of reference.
- Check the tread regularly.
- Store your tyres properly when you're not using them.
Replacements tyres from the FastFit Centre in St Helens
If you're concerned about your tyres, call in to see us and we'll give you our expert advice. We've got one of the best collections of tyres in St Helens!
You can find us at:
FastFit Centre
232-256 Boundary Road
Eccleston
St Helens
For satnav, our postcode is WA10 2PZ
Alternatively, give us a call on 01744 808 586 or take a look at our contact us page for some other ways to get in touch.
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