Whether you live in Buttermere or Billericay, Brentwood or London, you need to make sure your car’s tyres are in good condition before you set out on a road trip with your kids. People who live in counties in the south of England, like Essex, often take their kids on a road trip for their summer holiday to destinations such as the Lake District. Likewise, people who reside in Cumbria will often head south to enjoy a road trip to southern parts of the country or even travel to France and beyond via ports like Dover or Portsmouth. Either way, longer-than-usual road travel will place your tyres under greater pressure. What should you be doing to ensure you enjoy a hassle-free road trip with your family?
1. Inflate Your Tyres Properly
To begin with, basic tyre maintenance should be conducted to ensure your car is ready for any drive, let alone a journey that will take several hours and may be split up over several days. When you are planning a road trip, make sure you take your car to the filling station in the days running up to it to use the pump. Simply checking that your car doesn’t have under-inflated tyres will not only mean your journey will be safer but it will save you money, too. Even partially flat tyres run less efficiently meaning you end up burning more fuel – or depleting your battery quicker – for every mile you drive. Equally, you should make sure your tyres aren’t over-inflated which means they will offer less grip than they should, something that could be telling if it happens to rain during your road trip.
2. Replace Balding Tyres
There are good places to replace bald tyres all over the country, including counties like Cumbria and Essex. You can even get tyres in Billericay at great prices from Elite Direct if you have noticed that your tyres no longer have sufficient tread. You can do this with nothing more complex than a 20-pence coin, the rim of which matches the legal threshold for tyres in the UK. Insert a coin into the grooves of your tread at various places around the circumference. If the rim disappears, then there is enough tread left. If you can still see it, then your tyres are no longer street-legal and must be replaced before you embark on your road trip.
3. Check for Sidewall Bulges
Tyres don’t just deteriorate on their outer rims because their sidewalls also sometimes suffer from UV damage. If so, you may see bulges sticking out from them. Such issues indicate that the tyres in question could blow out at any time. Like blading tyres, they should not be driven on because they are unsafe especially if you are travelling with your kids.
4. Have Your Wheel Tracking Set
If you are having your tyres checked professionally, then ask for the wheel tracking to be adjusted for you, too. This will mean that the wheels line up properly, placing the tyres under less stress whether you’re headed from Clacton to Coniston or from Kendall to Coggeshall. When you travel a long way, wheels can become progressively more misaligned, so having this sorted out before and not after a road trip makes sense.
5. Inspect Your Spare Tyre
Finally, it is good advice to take a look at your spare tyre to make sure it is in a serviceable condition before you leave home. Do so even if you have never used it before. Some have limited speeds or ranges that you will need to know about before you use it. Checking beforehand and not on the hard shoulder of the A13 or the M6 is a wise move you won’t regret.
Hence, before setting for a road trip it is important that you have properly inspected your tyres so that you can avoid any unexpected road hurdle or halt while driving with kids.
