Runflat Tyres

What do Runflat Tyres Do?

Many of my customers complain when they have to buy their first replacement Runflat Tyres. They simply do not understand how these tyres have evolved during the past 10 years of car design and its all linked with green house gasses and your cars emissions.

Runflat Tyres help to reduce the overall weight of your car. This is done by not having a spare wheel, jack or wheel brace, which reduces the overall weight of the car thus making your car car more fuel efficient. Also the fact that you do not have a spare wheel gives you more space in the boot and as stated a lighter load. The Runflat Tyres are also made from less materials than the conventional tyres which also makes them more environmentally friendly.

As far as tyre performance is cocerned the Runflat Tyres are just the same as the conventional tyres providing all the benefits of the modern performance tyres, the main difference is that when your car has a puncture while you are out driving, then the runflat tyre will not deflate giving your car normal handling and cornering therefore reducing the risk of an accident with other road users. This is especially important say if you were in the fast lane of the motorway when the puncture occurred. Your normal tyre would instantly deflate making your car very unstable and possibly cauing a bad accident, in fact figures show that tyres cause a large percentage of motor related accidents, and theRunflat Tyres are a big improvement on the accident figures, enabling the driver to keep a straight line when a puncture occurs in his runflats.

These new Runflat Tyres systems were originally created to keep drivers safe, because punctures and blowouts can be dangerous, and as stated before account for a large majority of fatal accidents on the road. Apart from safety, a flat tyre can be a real inconvenience, adding time and cost and sometimes embarrassment to your journey. Changing a tyre is fairly straightforward, but it often occurs at the most inopportune moment — getting stuck on the side of a motorway or in the pouring rain with noisy kids in the back seat is really no fun at all! And trying to change a tyre on the hard shoulder can be dangerous in itself, or even impossible if you are disabled or elderly, in fact many drivers have to call out the rescue services to change the wheel for them. The drivers with Runflat Tyres do not have to put up with this and once the tyre warning light comes on in the cab, they can safely tootle home or carry on with their journey,(all be it at 50 mph, which is the recommended speed once you have a flat on your Runflat Tyres).

Any vehicle fitted with Runflat Tyres should also include a Tyre Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) this will show you whether you tyre pressure has been lost, this is because without this the loss of pressure in your tyres will not be noticed. Runflat Tyresare meant to maintain their speed, handling and smoothness of driving when a puncture occurs, even when driving on a motorway. A TPMS is essential to alert the driver to a loss in tyre pressure, and will indeed becoming part of the MOT test in the near future. Your TPMS works from either a sensor in your wheel , which is usually a special valve or from the cars ABS braking system.

Almost all of the Worlds leading tyre companies make Runflat Tyresincluding Continental and Goodyear. Cheap tyres can be bought online, but I recommend that you stick to the make that you have on the car at the moment or as a good cheaper alternative we recommend Kumho or Toyo tyres.