The Importance of Having The Correct Tire Pressure For Better Fuel Efficiency and Optimal Vehicle Handling

By Wil Yeo of Avanigroup.com

Most people conveniently ignore the importance of tire maintenance. As a matter of fact, by paying attention to just one thing - your tire pressure, can do you a whole lot of good. As we all know, tires are the only contacts between your car and the road and therefore it should never be taken lightly.

So, why is maintaining correct pressure important? Simply put, failure to maintain right tire pressure on a consistent basis may result in faster tire wear, tire failures and loss of control, thus resulting in possible serious injuries or even property damages.

There are namely, three different situations when it comes to your tire pressure: The correct pressure, the under inflation and the over inflation.

Some Useful Information Relating To Tire Pressures

*    The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that underinflated tires resulted in 300,000 accidents per year in American alone.

*    Surveys have found that many vehicles (about 4 out of 5 or 80%) routinely have at least one underinflated tire.

*    It is estimated that, on average, Americans wasted two million gallons of gas each year because of underinflated tires (more energy required to move vehicles with underinflated tires).

*     A survey has shown that a relatively high percentage (>50%) of people have mistakenly believed that the correct pressure is listed on the tire sidewall.

Under Inflation

Underinflated tire, while common, is really not something that is desirable and can be a serious liability.

  Here's some good reasons why you should not have underinflated tires:

*    An underinflated tire can affect load-carrying capacity.

*    Underinflated tires cannot maintain the ideal tire shape and thus resulted in having more contact areas with the ground and require more traction to move. This in turn imply that more energy are needed to move the vehicle, which resulted in waste of fuel and at the same time cause the tires to wear out much faster. 

*    Underinflated tires flexes more as it rolls, thus building up an excessive amount of heat and could damage the tire's internal structure which can happen within an unexpectedly short period of time. In short, underinflated tire builds up excessive heat that may result in sudden tire destruction. This possible consequence is exacerbated when the vehicle is going at high speed.

*    The overheated, underinflated tires can become rather soft and thus can be penetrated fairly easily.

*   An underinflated tire will wear excessively on the edges of the tire than at the center, thus putting a great deal of pressure on the side walls of the tires.

*    Driving a car with underinflated tires can result in a tire failure over time, such as tire blowouts, with the possibility of  a loss of vehicle control and also crashes.

Tip:  Avoid driving when you noticed that your vehicle has seriously underinflated tires. As a quick solution, get a portable air compressor that can draw power from your cigarette plug to bring the pressure up before proceeding with your drive and then make sure you fill your tire to the right pressure at using proper tire pressure air pump.

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