Take heed of what your tyre pressure warning is trying to tell you
Recently I have encountered several occasions when customers have run their RUN FLAT tyres to destruction. The problem arises from them having the indirect system of tyre pressure warning. This type of system does not directly measure the actual tyre pressure but instead calculates whether there is a problem by comparing the rotational speed of the wheels. If it detects an issue then the user has to check the pressure of all the tyres to discover which one has the problem. However, a RUN FLAT tyre may not necessarily appear to be obviously low on pressure, so you cannot tell just by looking at the tyre. The actual pressure needs to be measured. Unfortunately for some customers, they have disregarded the warning and having reset the system have continued to drive the vehicle. Eventually the tyre gives up the will to carry on and ends up as the one in the picture below.
So, if you have the indirect system of tyre pressure warning you should check the pressures at the first opportunity after seeing the alert. If it has little or no pressure then you will know straight away that you have a problem. If on the other hand you find one with just a few psi less then top it up and check again on another day even if the warning has not raised another alert. If the warning comes on again, check all the tyres again. If the same tyre has lost pressure again then you know you have a problem that needs to be addressed.
Believe it or not I have had instances were customers have been driving on RUN FLAT tyres with little or no pressure in them simply because they looked OK.
So, even if the tyres look fine, if the warning system activates, check your tyre pressures before you reset the system.
HometyreGroup
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