Christchurch Tyres

Let’s face it: wheels are about as important as your feet.  True, they don’t get as much attention as the rest of your body, but without feet, you wouldn’t be able to walk.  So what are typical wheels made of?  Steel wheels used to be the most common type of wheel, but alloy wheels have grown rapidly in popularity over the last couple decades.  It’s also extremely popular to want to upgrade wheels and tyres to aftermarket ones so the car can stand out and have some unique style to it.  Many shows on MTV show enormous SUVs with aftermarket rims, most of which are actually available at if you look around at Christchurch tyres.

One thing to understand is that not all wheels are the same.  You can’t just go buy the fanciest set of wheels and assume they’ll fit on your car.  They will have somewhere between 3-6 studs, depending on how your car is made.  You can either take a look at your wheel and see how many holes there are, or a quick google search will probably take just as little time.  The offset is also crucial to look at, because many cars can’t even fit rim and tyres that are a certain size.

For those of you who care more about looks than performance, your wheel and tyre selection will probably end here.  The Christchurch tyres specialist will recommend a certain size tyre and you will probably take it.  But for some of us, the tyres are just as important as the wheels themselves.  Even though you will most likely not have much of a choice as to what size tyre you select, different tyres have different ratings so depending on how you plan on using your car, you will want to make a decision about which rating.  If you shell out more money when getting your Christchurch tyres, you can expect to get better and longer lasting treads, as well as better traction on the road.  That is to say, when you go around a tight turn at a decent speed, you can expect less screeching (and hopefully less lifting of the actual wheels) with the more expensive, grippier tyres.  But for those of us who drive cautiously anyway, cheaper tyres will probably do just as good, and you won’t even notice very much of a performance decline when getting the cheap ones.  Really it’s up to the buyer and the expected usage of the car.  A specialist will be able to explain anything further on the subject.

It’s a fact of life: everyone needs to perform minor maintenance on their car if they want it to last long.  Both new drivers who don’t treat their cars as well and old drivers who treat their cars like their children need to check up on things every once in a while.  One of the easiest and most important things to check is the tyres.  Sure you could always go to a Christchurch tyres professional and have them do the work, but it’s quite cost efficient to just learn how to do it yourself and not have to worry about making an appointment and bringing the car in.

First you will want to take the car to an area where you can get a good look at it.  Make sure there is ample lighting and that you are not near other cars (don’t just do it on the side of the road!)  Employ the hand brake so you don’t have to worry about your safety while inspecting the car.  Go over each tyre and make sure there aren’t any foreign objects stuck in the treads.  These kinds of things can eventually damage the tyre and you’d have to go to a Christchurch tyres place to get it repaired.  You see those little appendages sticking out of the tyre?  Those are there to indicate when the tyre should be replaced.  If they are as low as the actual tread itself, then you probably need to replace it.  There are laws in New Zealand for how low your tread is allowed to be, and these are merely there for your own safety.  You can actually be fined for not replacing this, and if you ask any Christchurch tyres guy he will tell you the exact same thing.

Doing this check every few months can save you time, money, and the hassle of either having a tyre blow out on you or a police officer giving you an enormous fine for letting the tread go too low.  Preventative maintenance in this situation is a must.