In order to help maintain the health of your vehicle, it’s important to check your tyre pressure on a regular basis. By doing so, it’s going to lower the risk of flat tyres or overinflating them so that they end up bursting as a result. That’s never a good outcome when you’re in the middle of a long journey and far away from home.

How do you check? Unless you’ve done it before, it’s not something you’ll necessarily know how to do as it’s not taught in schools or really communicated when learning to drive.

This guide will give you all the information you need and how to find the correct tyre pressure when it comes to your own car tyres.

The importance of inflated tyres

It’s easy to forget the importance of tyres but they’re the one part of the car that has a connection with the ground. After all, you don’t want uneven contact area with the road as that could lead to a dangerous and damaging outcome. Keeping the tyres inflated properly can bring with it, many benefits. Here are some of the benefits of inflated tyres:

• Helps to avoid uneven wear on tyres
• Improve fuel efficiency on the road
• Better handling and control of the car
• Prolongs their life and provides value to investment
• A more comfortable ride and dependable traction

Where do you get your tyres pumped?

Most petrol stations will have a tyre pressure station where tyres can easily be inflated. However, when it comes to checking your pressure, this is something that you can do at home and is worthwhile doing when tyres are cold and have yet to be run on the road.

Inflating tyres is something that you’ll check up on every month in order to assess the tyre and how inflated it still is. Often enough, a visible check of the tyres will indicate if you need to pump them up or not.

How to check your tyre pressure

How do you check your pressure properly? Depending on your car, the vehicle handbook or vehicle manufacturer should have the recommended pressure available. This is a good place to start because now you know what you’re looking for. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to check your tyre pressure efficiently.

1. Remove the valve dust cap from the tyre valve and use the pressure gauge on the tyre valve stem.
2. Press down the gauge in order to get the air pressure reading. The amounts of air can vary in each tyre as they can lose pressure in different ways. Make sure you check them all.
3. Check the reading to see if tyres need inflating or deflating.
4. Use a suitable pump and add small amounts of air at a time for inflation. For deflation, you can use most tyre pressure gauges, pressing the trigger halfway to deflate. If your gauge doesn’t allow this, you can use the tip of a flat-head screwdriver to push the metal pin found on the valve’s stem to release some air.
5. Continue to measure with the pressure gauge between inflating or deflating the tyre.

Many modern vehicles are fitted with a tyre pressure monitoring system (TPMS) which can be helpful to keep a constant eye on the tyre pressure without having to do all of the above on a regular basis. The vehicle will alert you when your tyre pressure needs adjusting.

Once you’ve done it a couple of times, it gets easier and takes less time too. As a reminder, be sure to do it when your tyres are cold, rather than checking them after you’ve been driving for hours on the road. That won’t give an accurate reading and may cause you to overinflate or underinflate the tyres as result.

Get your tyre pressure checked and inflated by professionals

For those that are unfamiliar with tyre pressure and inflating the tyres on their vehicle, it may be worthwhile bringing it into a garage. At John Delany Motors, Stockport, we are happy to check your vehicles tyre pressure and top them up free of charge. You can avoid the hassle of doing it yourself or understanding the difference between pounds per square inch (PSI) or bar pressure.

We can also advise you of the recommended pressure for your vehicle so that in the future, you can check yourself with the tyre pressure gauge at home.

If you’d prefer to pass it on to the professionals, bring your vehicle down to John Delany’s garage! Put your mind at ease and get your tyres inflated properly so your tyres pressure is always present and correct.