Tips on Buying Standard Tyres

Road Safety

Boring and lacklustre. Sloppy and Scrappy. Drab and Uninspiring. These were how fans and pundits described Arsenal’s performance against Shakhtar Donetsk during their UEFA league match on Tuesday, October 22, 2024 at the Emirates Stadium.

For the first time, I felt like porting like my brother Chris Kehinde Nwandu. Sincerely, I almost travelled the road CKN travelled a few years ago when he ported from Arsenal to Manchester United. CKN would have popped palm wine from his villa, Obowo in Imo State in celebration of my football hara-kiri.

But just then, I remembered that real Gunners don’t jump ship. They remain faithful and focused despite hiccups. So, I chose to remain faithful to Mikel Arteta’s project which has evidently shown that we are a team to reckon with in the Premiership and in World football despite what faulters like CKN may say

To be candid though, the match against Shakhtar Donetsk was real torture. It is now clear there is no depth in the team. Odegard and Saka’s absence was too obvious. However, Gabriel Martilleni was the real deal as well as our goalkeeper, David Raya and Kai Havertz.

Contrast sloppy Arsenal with Real Madrid. Despite being two goals down, their talisman Vinicius Jr’s. magic took the tally to five goals against two for Dortmund. Or Aston Villa thrashing Bologna by two goals. Barcelona football club was also on song as they took Bayern Munich to the cleaners in a revenge mission. Win was narrow. There was an obvious lack of creativity in midfield. Defending was nervy. Opportunities that went the way of Gabriel Jesus and Leandro Trossard were fluttered.

Anyway, what do I know about football? So, permit me to face my safety matter. Afterall, in the words of Robbie Lyle from Arsenal fan Television, we are consoled that we had two positives; kept eleven men on the pitch and we won. Yet despite all said and done, we are still a cut above most clubs.

Back to the second part of my tyre talk. Tyres are among the most important parts of the vehicle but unfortunately the least understood. Without the tyres, your vehicle is useless. You need the tyres to start, move and stop the vehicle.

So, buying tyres is a task you need to undertake very carefully otherwise your safety and that of others could be put in great danger. Before you buy any tyre, give serious consideration to the size of the tyre, the age of the tyre and the physical conditions of the tyre.

Let’s start with tyre size: On the sidewall of your tyres, you will see figures like 215/75/15r, 195/65/14r and so on. These are designations for your tyre sizes. Check your own tyre to know what is written on it. The first figure from the left is the width (from side wall to side wall) of the tyre in millimetres; the middle number is what is known as the aspect ratio used to calculate the height of the side wall of the tyre.

The last number is the rim diameter. When you go to buy tyres, you will mention all of these figures to the tyre seller so that he will give you exactly what you want, there are various sizes of tyres in the market that can fit your type of vehicle but that does not mean that those sizes are good/safe for your vehicle.

Every vehicle has tyre sizes specified by the vehicle manufacturer. If you check the tyre placard by the end of your driver’s door, hood or the vehicle’s manual, you will see the specification for your vehicle’s tyre sizes, please stick to this specification while buying replacement tyres.

Don’t let the tyre seller give you something else. The manufacturer of your vehicle has taken a lot of factors into consideration before specifying your vehicle tyre sizes. If you change that, your vehicle may not handle well, may be risking a blowout and a crash.

Changing to fatter tyres like some people do may look better but not safer. In most cases, the manufacturer provides alternative sizes should you not find the original sizes the vehicle came with. The tyre placard will specify these alternatives. However, there are some calculations you can make to get sizes apart from what the manufacturer specified that will give you the same result as the original specification, but you need to know how to do the calculations otherwise stick to the original specification.

Next is how to determine the age of the tyre: Even more important than the size of the tyre, is its age. Unfortunately, most motorists as well as tyre sellers themselves don’t know how to check for the tyre age; they depend only on visual inspection of the physical conditions.

Some will invite a vulcanizer who will do a press up (or is it press down) on the tyre to certify if it is okay what a wrong and dangerous thing to do. Why the emphasis on the age of a tyre? Just as age could disqualify an otherwise promising marriage mate, age will disqualify a tyre even if every other thing seems alright from a visual inspection.

Do not be deceived by a tyre’s looks every tyre has an effective life span beyond which you will be entering the danger zone. As a general rule, any tyre more than 6 years old should be discarded. This rule, however, applies to quality tyres with branded known names. Less quality tyres of course, may not last that long.

So how do you determine the age of a tyre? Unlike humans who can hide their ages, every tyre provides information about its age but in a coded form. Look at the side walls of your tyre and check for the letters dot. Look around the dot (to the left or to the right) until you get to either a three digit or four-digit number boldly imprinted on the tyre without any alphabet attached to it.

Some tyres, though, may not have the letters dot printed on them. Just look around the side wall you definitely will see a 3 or 4- digit number clearly imprinted on the tyre. The 3 or 4- digit number is the code designating the date of manufacture of the tyre.

Since it is a code, you need to decode it to get the age of the tyre. So, let’s decode it. If it is a 3 -digit number, check to see if it has a triangle sign attached to it. A 3- digit number without a triangle means the tyre was manufactured in the 80’s, the first two numbers from the left tells you the week in the year while the last number tells you the year in the 80’s.

For example,if you have the number 341 (without a triangle) it means 34 week of 1981 (34 is the first two numbers from the left indicating the week while 1 is the last number indicating the year in the 80’s) if the 3 digit number has a triangle it means the tyre was made in the 90’s.

So, 341 with a triangle means the tyre was made in the 34th week in 1991. If it is a 4-digit number, it means the tyre was made any year from the year 2000. For example, a tyre with 2302 means the 23rd week of the year 2002. The first two numbers from the left indicate the week while the last two numbers indicate the year. Four- digit numbers do not have triangle signs with them.