Tyres

Today is the day they have an auction at the nearest auction place from our office. My staff went down to have a look and found a Mazda RX8. It is 3 years since its first registration, has only done 30,000Km and was in an excellent condition apart from one thing: although the tyres have enough grooves left, all 4 of them have big cracks and need replacement. Tyres on late model cars like this should not have cracks bad enough that you need to replace them. This must be from the previous owner’s maintenance. Now I would like to talk about tyres.

We at JPC deal with used cars and customers frequently ask us when the best time to change tyres would be. The other day, when I talked to a salesperson from a tyre manufacturer about the duration of tyres, he said up to 5 years with light housewives’ duties such as doing daily chores. Another person at a tyre specialist shop gave them 3 years. Which is right? Confusing, isn’t it?

Not widely known, is that tyres on a new car have different compounds to the replacement tyres on the market even if they are from the same maker. Car makers put priority in duration, so new car tyres tend to harden a lot quicker. Usually for a new car, 3 years after the purchase, tyres start to get stiff, the stiffness gradually increase as you drive it more and they will pass the time limit for normal function. You will not need to replace them straight away yet although it should be judged by checking their actual performance.

We do sometimes see cars like the one at today’s auction, whose tyres have enough grooves but it has numbers of cracks on the surface. Normally this is the result of rubber degradation from external reasons such as ultra-violet rays, Ozone and oil. The one I lately have noticed is from using special wax to protect & polish tyres. You know, when we change tyres because of the ugly cracks on them, we sometimes see the other side of them perfectly smooth. This unfortunately indicates that too much wax on the surface caused the cracks. Some people use wax on tyres after each car wash, but as you know, tyres are made from rubber, a natural plant material. In contrast, wax is made from oil (petroleum). Putting oil on a plant cannot be good. There are different types of wax available and if you want to use some for the tyres, I recommend non-oil ones. The sad thing is that they are much more expensive than oil based types. If you are going to use an oil base wax, you might as well not bother waxing. Looking at the RX8 which was in a perfect condition, exterior & interior; I can say the owner used oil based wax to protect the tyres.

Then do we have to change the tyres once they have cracks? If the cracks are on the side wall of the tyres from age, you do not need to change them immediately, but you have to be careful they might burst if you drive it on a highway or bump them against a curb. Supporting the total weight of the car, tyres are an important part which you put your and all the passengers’ lives in. You should really change them before it is too late.

We can put brand-new tyres before exporting a car if you want us to. So please do not hesitate to ask us!

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(Editor)
JPC TRADE CO.,LTD.
Kato building 4F, 1-1-2 Furuishiba, Koto-ku, Tokyo
Japan Used Motor Vehicle Exporters Association (JUMVEA)
TEL : +81-3-5245-7731
FAX : +81-3-3643-4955