Puncture Repair or a New Tyre?

A new customer called our head office last week, she had been recommended us by a work colleague to repair a puncture at her work place which she had picked up on her drive in.

We arranged to go out to her later that day to see if we could repair the puncture. We always try to repair a puncture if we can, it has to meet the BSAU159 standards. To find out more about whether a puncture is repairable, click here!

We arrived on site at her workplace and she showed us the screw in the front offside tyre, unfortunately we could immediately tell this was not going to be repairable, the screw had gone into the tyre on the sidewall, the puncture needs to be in the central 3/4 of the tread for it to be legally repairable. This tyre was also nearing the end of it's lifespan as it was already almost 6 years old, we strongly recommend changing your tyres no later than 7 years after they were manufactured. Once they get to this age the rubber begins to deteriorate and cracks will appear in the tread.

We fitted the new Nexen tyre to the Citroen DS3 and then carried out a routine tyre inspection for free on the remaining 3 tyres. Upon inspection we found that all 3 other tyres on the vehicle were even older than the punctured tyre! One of these tyres was manufactured back in 2008, which means it was turning 11 years old this year! See the DOT code below, [5008] means this tyre was manufactured in the 50th week of 2008.

We explained the importance of checking the age of your tyres to the customer and after a quick chat she organised for us to come back to her home address on Saturday morning to fit 3 more Nexen tyres to her vehicle.

The age of a tyre

The reason tyre age needs to be paid attention to is because they age dangerously. The reason for this is because the chemical process known as oxidisation occurs within the rubber of a tyre, this happens because they are exposed to oxygen. This caused the rubber to harden over time which will result in the tyre cracking, just like an old rubber band would snap when stretched.

This is one of the main reasons we are so against part worn tyres, even if the tyre is advertised to have ample tread there is a chance the tyre could be older than the recommended age. An older tyre is much more likely to burst than a newer tyre, this is because as the rubber ages it is likely cracks will appear, sometimes these will not be obvious because they can develop within the grooves of the tread. Once the tyre heats up these cracks will expand and can result in a blow out.

For more information on how to check your tyres, click here!

Or for more information and to talk to a member of our team call 0333 444 5454!