Pressure
It’s crucial that you’re aware of the correct pressure for your vehicle’s tyres, as well as checking them on a regular basis to ensure your tyres are running at the correct pressure.
Tyre pressure has a direct impact on:
Operating a vehicle with incorrect tyre pressures can cost you anywhere between 3-10% more in fuel consumption.
If you don’t have a system in place to check the tyre pressure across your entire fleet, you can imagine how multiplying that number by the number of vehicles in your fleet can make a real difference to your bottom line.
Tread
Tread depth is also something that will have an impact on how well a vehicle handles and the fuel consumption.
The legal limit for a car in the UK is 1.6mm. When a tyre’s tread depth reaches this point, the tyre has to be replaced.
However, this doesn’t mean you should wait until your tyres wear down to 1.6mm.
Every company has their own tyre tread policy, but most companies check their vehicle tyres on a regular basis and change them when the tread depth is somewhere in the 3-4mm range.
With serious safety implications to operating a vehicle on or under the legal wear limit, how confident are you that your vehicle tyres are checked regularly enough?
Age
There was some new legislation that was released in 2021 in regards to the age of tyres on company vehicles.
It is now illegal for the front (steering) tyres on goods vehicles with a gross mass of 3.5 tonnes or more (HGVs), coaches, buses, and single wheels fitted to a minibus to be more than 10 years old.
For this reason, you should have a process in place to keep a record of how old the tyres are on your vehicles and flag when any tyres are approaching 10 years old.
If you’re unsure of how old the tyres currently are on your vehicles, there is a code on the side of every tyre showing the week/month and year of manufacture.
Need Help With Your Tyre Management Systems?
This was a brief look at tyre management covering the three main aspects of ensuring your vehicles and tyres are roadworthy and safe.
Ultimately, as vehicle operators, it’s our responsibility to have robust processes in place to ensure all of our vehicles are safe.
If you’d like to know more about tyre safety or how Fleetcheck can help streamline and automate your tyre safety checks, please feel free to get in touch with a member of our team by using this form or calling our office on 01666 577928.
