All Tyre Articles-Including seperate manufacture posts

Goodyear tyres Safety App-Available to All Motorists especially Young Drivers

12th December 2019/in All Goodyear Tyres Stuff /by Eric

Goodyear tyres Safety App

Goodyear tyres Safety App; Goodyear tyres Safety App is mainly targeted at the younger driver. The young drivers are in my opinion the least likely to take onboard safety issues when it comes to safe driving. We have all been there in our younger days and done silly things. This, unfortunately, includes drink driving and more recently driving under the influence of drugs.

Tyre safety is a major issue to me. This simply because I feel it my responsibility to inform the public about tyre safety and the risks involved. Young men, in particular, seem to be the ones that flaunt the law. They overtake in silly situations. I have also noticed that recently this has become a more common problem.

This is when accidents happen? When a car is driven too fast out of a junction or at a roundabout can be a dangerous manoeuvre. But with a set of tyres that are not

Goodyear tyres Safety App screenshot

correctly inflated can double the chances of things going drastically wrong.

This Goodyear tyres Safety App

This app is to inform young drivers about the dangers of distraction while car driving. Goodyear has used a 360-degree gaming App called, “driving academy” and partnered up with the Driving Instructors Association to show the dangers of driver distraction. This is most relevant when driving along and using your mobile phone at the wheel.

Young drivers account for many of the near misses, with 23% of you drivers, admitting that they have used a mobile phone when driving their car.

Kate Rock, the PR manager of Goodyear Tyre UK, says that “One in five young drivers have an accident in the first six months of passing their tests. In the tyre industry, you simply lose points if you get distracted, but transfer the scenarios to a real life driving environment and distractions can end up changing lives”.

It is the target to encourage all young drivers to study such an App to improve their driving skills and have more thought for other road users. Don’t forget the tyres?

Customers can get this app, which is available at drivingacademy.goodyear.co.uk and can be accessed using Google Cardboard – or without.

Electric Car Tyres-Why are they More expensive than your normal car tyres?

11th December 2019/in All Michelin Tyres /by Eric

Electric Car Tyres

Electric Car Tyres-We were enjoying a busy spell, the other day. There was nothing out of the ordinary, just regular cars in for regular jobs doing.

It was pointed out to me, though, that one of the cars was an electric car. It looked pretty normal, but it was indeed a Renault Zoe EV car. The guy had bought the car for his wife. She only drove local mileage. She was a school teacher and went to school and back, a bit of shopping and no more.

The main family driving was done in his petrol driven car. The car had a blowout and the tyre needed changing. The tyre was a 195/55R16 Michelin energy E-V tyre. The energy and wet grip ratings were a Double-A and the sound was 70 dB (decibels.).

Electric Car Tyres

To his surprise though the tyre cost him £120, considerably more that he expected? We explained that this tyre had been designed with rolling resistance in mind. Rolling resistance was one of the three considerations regarding a cause for energy loss. The cars aerodynamics and the engine are the two other considerations.

Electric Car Tyres

In my opinion, the best option would be the Hybrid. I just can’t see an infrastructure that would be big enough to charge up millions of cars at the same time?

Is the hybrid the best of both worlds? You can use the battery when driving about town and the petrol engine for longer mileage driving. This car would also give hope to millions of garages and mechanics who rely on the petrol and diesel engine cars for their living. At the moment, it is wealthy people who are buying these electric cars as a status symbol, the “look at me, how green am I” brigade. They mostly look like the type of guys who drive about in Jaguars.

Not all of them but most of them?

Overloading caravan tyres-will spell a great deal of danger for the whole unit

11th December 2019/in All Tyre Articles /by Eric

Overloading caravan tyres

Overloading caravan tyres-Overloading caravan tyres are one of the cardinal sins?. The same also applies once again to motorhome drivers. This also comes into the poorly loaded vehicle category. You must ensure in any vehicle, but especially a caravan that the load is spread evenly.

What drivers do not realise is that a poorly distributed load will also overload the tyres. One side of the vehicle will be working harder than the other, which could lead to all sorts of problems as the journey progresses.

One of the worst places for this is on the M5 motorway. This motorway takes traffic to the holiday resorts in Devon and Cornwall. In busy periods the problems that drivers have with tyre blowouts magnifies. If the weather is hot, then the number of vehicles, (mostly caravans) increases and so does the number of tyres related problems.

The tyres that are carrying most of the weight, start to overheat and can eventually cause a blowout. This often relates to the caravan turning completely over.

Overloading caravan tyres;This under inflated caravan tyre only lasted one week before it disintegrated on a journey .

Also, when a tyre builds up the heat it is more likely to pick up Sharpe objects, such as nails and screws and once again this may relate to a blowout.

I think it would be a great idea for Caravan manufacturers to fit run-flat tyres to their products. Or at least give the buyer the option of fitting them. I am sure that this would be a much safer option.

Overloading caravan tyres

To ensure that your tyres are not overloaded, it should be possible for you to keep your caravans operational weight underneath your caravan’s specified maximum limit. A margin of say 10% will partly help you to compensate for some unequal load distribution. For your maximum safety and peace of mind regarding your caravan vehicle weight, go to a Public Weighbridge to check the load, if this is possible of course?

In short always check your tyres are the correct load rating for your vehicle and check the pressures and general condition of your tyres before your journey, millions of drivers do this and arrive safely to their destinations, and do not go Overloading caravan tyres. If you are fitted with Extra-load tyres or van 6 ply rated tyres, then replace them with the same thing, do not cut corners and fit normal car tyres, this happens thousands of times and can end in disaster.

Caravan Tyres Ageing- Second –hand caravan owners should check their tyres before a journey.

10th December 2019/in All Tyre Articles /by Eric

Caravan Tyres Ageing

This advice also stretches to people who buy second-hand motorhomes. When you buy your shiny caravan or motorhome. One of the first things to do before you set off from the dealers is to check your tyres.

The dealers will have made the vehicle look like it is sparkling. Make sure the tyres will have been painted nice and shiny with special tyre paint. But in my opinion, you should take a closer at the tyres. Before you drive your new prize position off the dealers car park.

All tyres are made to give thousands of miles of good service. They should also be well looked after by the owner. And this is the problem? Unless you know who the last owner was, then you will not know if the tyre were well looked after or not.

I know that this is probably the last thing on your mind but take a good look at the tyres, to see if they have the correct specifications, for your vehicle. If it is bought from a dealer then you can ask them if the tyres are correct for your particular caravan or motorhome.

You would be surprised how many people come to a cropper with this. Because we are in close proximity to the M62 motorway, we get many flat and damaged tyres brought into us by the motoring organisations. A large part of these people tell us that they have, “just bought the caravan” and did not know that the thing was fitted with the wrong ply tyres.

Caravan Tyres Ageing

Some are fitted with car tyres and not with a higher load rating to carry the correct weight. The worse scenario is the tyres that have caravan tyres ageing. The best sign for this is cracking like crazy paving around the bead and tread area. A good check when purchasing your caravan will detect this cracking. It can be very dangerous and the cracks will only get worse and eventually result in tyre failure.

Eric Roberts

Here is a quote from the excellent tyresafe.org

“There is no known technical data that supports a specific age for a tyres removal from service. However, in the interests of safety a number of vehicle and tyre manufacturers recommend that tyres (including spares) that were manufactured more than a certain number of years previously be replaced with new tyres, even if they appear to be usable from their external appearance and the tread may not have reached the minimum legal limit. It is recommended that any such manufacturer instructions should be followed. The age of your tyres can be found by examining the DOT (or date of manufacture) code found on the tyres sidewall markings. To understand more about tyre sidewall markings and how to check the age of your tyres download our handy guide to Caravan tyre safety”

download our handy guide to Caravan tyre safety

Locking Wheel-Nut Problem-BMW garage quotes extortionate price to remove locking wheel-nuts?

8th December 2019/in All Tyre Articles /by Eric

Locking Wheel-Nut Problem

Locking Wheel-Nut Problem; It is easy see that the big main dealer garages, have much larger overheads than a small garage like my own, here at Pellon Auto-centre, in Halifax UK. Probably all of us small garage owners have heard horror stories from our customers about the charges that main dealer garages charge their customers.

We have heard of a couple recently? One was a lady customer who was charged £700 for a standard service on her Audi. The garage was, of course, an Audi garage, and she was threatened with the old story of, “if you have your car serviced elsewhere, it would cancel the cars warranty”

315-35R20 Bridgestone Runflat BMW X5 tyre

We all know that this is not true. Going back to the lady customer, I asked if I could see the garages invoice because we all know that there could have been add-ons, such as other parts. This does sometimes put up the price of a service. But no the bill was for a service and service alone. I did notice that washing the car was extra, and a few other extras totted the bill up-to-the £700 that she paid.

The lady has been one of our customers ever since and all the rest of the family now bring their car problems into us. The most recent price shock came from the BMW garage. A tyre customer of ours asked the BMW garage to change his winter tyres back to his summer tyres. His car was in for some warranty work. He thought that he would ask them “just to change the tyres whilst they had the wheels off “, The BMW garage agreed but later in the morning phoned our customer with a locking wheel nut problem? The locking wheel nut tool was missing and they could not remove the locking wheel nuts.

The shock came when they explained that the job was going to be difficult and it would cost them a whopping £500 to remove the lockers and supply a new set? WOW

The terrified customer rang Deb our depot manager? Deb told her to get the car and we worked out that the job was going to be £54. The BMW came in and Ryan removed the lockers in 10 minutes, with no problem, like many other small garages we have invested in a special tool that helps us to remove the wheel nuts on 90% of vehicles.

Ryan also noticed that one of the summer tyres to be re-fitted had a nail in the shoulder area of the tyre. The Bridgestone tyres were special run-flat tyres that

BMW X5 with locking wheel nut issues

were specific to this particular BMW X5 model. This BMW comes with the i-Drive System. On this vehicle, the tyres must be of the same tread depth, on the same axle or this interferes with the cars drive system and handling.

The Bridgestone run-flat tyres are marked with a star on the sidewall. This star denotes that these are the correct tyres for this specific BMW car.

The customer paid a total of £640 for the Locking Wheel-Nut Problem solving and two new tyres fitting. There must be a moral in this story somewhere?

Tyre Price Match-Independent tyre companies like Pellon Tyres, can always Give a better deal?

8th December 2019/in All Car Manufacturer Articles, All Tyre Articles /by Eric

Tyre Price Match

Tyre Price Match-One of the things that have come out of the internet price war, is the ability to price-match. Tyre price match has become part of our weekly diet of working out the right price for our tyres to sell online.

Like many other independent tyre retailers in the UK, we always try our best to satisfy the service levels that we offer to our customers. Some of these customers, have been coming to us for years and trust us to give the best quality of work and service at a fair price.

We are always busy from word of mouth recommendations and we believe that this is still the best form of advertising. We do however offer our customers the

chance to look at our tyre website at www.pellontyres.co.uk and check out the price of their tyres. This is always helpful and the internet tyre market has now

Tyre Price Match;Range rover for 4×225/55R20 Michelin tyres

grown to 20% of all tyre sales in the UK.

The only downside to this is the fact that, we are probably not the cheapest prices for every tyre that a customer wants to buy online. It is the same scenario for all the internet tyre stores. This also applies from the smallest to the largest. There are also some tyre products that you can buy on one website but not from another. If you want a general grabber for your 4×4 in the Halifax area, then we are the only place that you would be able to buy from in the Halifax area of the UK.

We always pride ourselves on being able to source a tyre for a customer. We have a supply chain that stretches all across Europe. To my knowledge, we have never failed to be able to match a tyre for one of our customers and this is a great benefit of dealing with a local tyre company. We are there to help you, the customer can see a great effort and the many contacts that we have with other tyre companies.

Our prices are very competitive, I fact the new buzz word is “Tyre Price Match”. We are finding that our loyal customers with knowledge about our excellent service will ask us to tyre price match. We are delighted to do this? We realise, that some of us are price driven and we are happy to help if possible.

In fact, our latest tyre price match came from a driver with a beautiful Range Rover SUV. His tyre size was 255/55R20 and he needed 4 tyres. Because of the price decided to look at different websites for a price. The price on our website was a little more expensive than another tyre company. He wanted to deal with us, because of his past service and trust in our work standards. He rang deb in reception and asked for a tyre price match.

The tyres he wanted were top of the range Michelin Latitude Sports tyres and the most expensive. We shopped around our suppliers and to his surprise, we were able to beat his previous quotes. The customer was delighted and we fitted his tyres on a Saturday morning. If you like dealing with us we will gladly price match is possible, we are a small family business and as they say “every little helps”.

Tyre registration-Will Europe follow the Path of the American Tyre Market?

6th December 2019/in All Tyre Articles /by Eric

Tyre registration

Tyre registration- When I first saw this tyre law coming out of America, the thought crossed my mind that what started out over the pond, usually ended up here in the UK or even Europe. In other words, would we have to start registering every tyre that we sold?

I suppose the big difference is that the USA have a much bigger culture of suing people and companies for every little thing. However, when looking at the whole picture, then it could make a little sense, on behalf of the tyre Manufacturers.

The story is that every consumer that buys a new tyre has now to register their purchase, under the requirements of the federal law. Tyre retailer and dealers,

Tyre registration-Image courtesy of Pirelli from their tyre registration website

must provide a registration form to fill in, or an electronic platform so that you can register the purchase online.

The reason for this is that the consumer can be notified by the tyre manufacturer if there is a tyre recall or a problem with a certain batch of tyres. This will give an early warning should any problem occur and also cover the tyre producers from possible further problems from faulty tyres, say causing accidents when running too much on these tyres.

I must say that we in the UK do not have these problems. On the contrary, I think that tyre products have improved over the years and faulty tyres are far and few between. We do not have the legal culture of the states and do not take everybody to court when a problem arrives.

Tyre registration

What strikes me though is the fact that the tyre makers are going to have a heap of information about who buys their tyres and where from. Although I have read that the consumer’s personal information, will be protected by federal law, I can’t help seeing the number of tyre manufacturers that offer registration forms online.

This information could give them a mass of details about who, what and where their tyre products were purchased and many other things that I don’t know

Tyre registration-Image from Michelin tyres registration website.

about. I am sure that tyre manufacturers in Europe will catch onto this idea as will give them a huge insight as to who and why consumers buy their products.

As for the consumer? It will give them the responsibility to register their tyres and help become more aware of the safety aspect of their tyres. If they do not carry out tyre registration then I presume that they could not sue the tyre company, if a faulty tyre caused an accident.

As for the tyre dealers, well it is just extra work for us?

For more information… http://www.nhtsa.gov/Vehicle+Safety/Test+Procedures

Michelin Energy EV-tyres- Fitted to a Renault Zoe in Halifax UK.

6th December 2019/in All Michelin Tyres /by Eric

Michelin Energy EV-tyres

Michelin Energy EV-tyres -Saturday’s at Pellon Tyres, in Halifax. Are filled dealing with tyre customers and tyre enquiries. Thus, like many UK tyre dealers, we attract a varied amount of different models and makes of cars. Saturday is generally a tyre day?

This Saturday just gone was no exception?. It was a steady day with cars calling in and out at regular intervals. We often jack car’s up outside to remove their wheels and fit tyres or carry out puncture repairs. Especially, if the weather is dry, and this Saturday it was.

There had been nothing special in on this day, we fitted a couple of General tyres onto a Toyota, an odd Bridgestone and few economy tyres. This was until one of my staff pointed out a sort of plain looking car, a Renault Zoe.

The Zoe was jacked up and having a damaged Michelin tyre replaced. Because this was exactly the same tyre that came off. The guy had brought the car in for a puncture repair. As a result, to be repaired. But the screw was too close to the shoulder, and could not be repaired.

I noticed that the 195/55R16 91Q Michelin EV-Tyres were, in fact, double A rated. Not forgetting that the two companies, Renault and Michelin have deep roots in France and have been developing tyres together, ever since tyres were invented? The joint tyre development for the Zoe tyres began over four years ago. Both companies worked very hard in the development, to design a tyre that would achieve

Michelin Energy EV-tyres

Both an increased driving range and would also fit in with the French emission standards, and the Michelin EV-Tyres, are what they came up with.

When I had a chat with the customer, he said” I bought the car for my wife?. Most of her driving is done at a local level around town, so we tried the Zoe, it’s great, and we just plug the car in on a night and recharge it for her next day’s driving”.

Vincent Rousset-Rouvière, Head of the Michelin Passenger Car tyre Replacement unit in Europe, and Bernard Dumondel, who is the “Customer Specifications Electric Vehicle Director” with Renault, look back on this exciting developments and the technological challenge and the major stages in the fruitful collaboration between the two groups, to develop and introduce the Michelin EV-Tyres.

Buying cheap online tyres can be a time saving exercise.

4th December 2019/in All Tyre Articles /by Eric

Buying cheap online tyres

Buying cheap online tyres-As we all know most of the major stores in the retail sector have their own websites. The stores also have an online presence for selling their products and have embraced the great idea of selling the products online. This includes the tyre retail sector. Tyre companies can now sell a range of tyres from cheap tyres, including many budget brands to quality brands, such as Continental tyres and Goodyear Tyres.

Now in 2016, the small local retail tyre companies, such as Pellon Tyres in Halifax Yorkshire UK, can offer tyres online at prices just as competitive as the large multi-national companies. If the customer knows the correct replacement tyres for their vehicle then they can visit their favourite, local tyre retailer and buy the tyres for just as cheap as the big companies. All they have to do is enter the tyre size or the registration number of the car and order the tyres online for fitting at whatever date they require.

Buying cheap online tyres

Our customers in Halifax can even have the tyres sent out to most postcodes in the UK for the same price. The prices online include fitting or delivery, with no extra charge for sending the tyres out.

Buying cheap online tyres

Why order from a national tyre company, when you can buy from your local tyre retailer online and still get a very competitive price. Many of the larger online tyre retailers send their customers to some back street garage for the tyres to be fitted. Drivers must cringe when they turn up to some of these places?

Another good part of having an online presence is that our local customers can check to see what their tyres are going to cost. We have many customers that just turn up and tell us that they have been online at our website, and could they have say two of those 205/55R16 General mid- range tyres.

Buying cheap online tyres

This is great for us because we know that many of our customers return time and time again, because of our great customer care and service. Looking online for their tyres is just an extension to that service.

By looking at our prices and tyre brands they can knowingly trust our prices to be very competitive, and also know that we will give them an excellent service, where they can sit in a nice warm reception, have a coffee and watch TV or read a women’s magazine, while we take care of fitting their tyres. The larger internet tyre sellers could send you anywhere?

So to finalise, most local tyre retailers have a good online presence. They should have a priced sight, for you to choose the tyres that you are looking for and the correct price range. You then know that you will be treated in the same clean and friendly way that you were on past visits.

Firestone Multihawk 2 tyres- a great all-year round tyre performer

4th December 2019/in All Bridgestone/Firestone Tyres Stuff /by Eric

Firestone Multihawk 2 tyres

Firestone Multihawk 2 tyres-As I have stated many times, Firestone tyres have had a shaky past. We all now know about the problems of the past with faulty steel belt problems?.

The good news is that since the Bridgestone take over. Then Firestone are reaffirming their status as a leading European tyre brand. The new Firestone Multihawk 2 tyres are heading the company in the right direction. With a tyre that allows the driver freedom to visit anywhere he likes.

Firestone Multihawk 2 tyres- One of Firestone tyres latest offerings to improve the companies image in the mid-range tyre market.

This Firestone Multihawk 2 tyres. Along with other great tyres in the range including the TZ300 run flat tyres and the Destination HP SUV tyre range. Are helping to establish Firestone as a leading mid-range tyre manufacturer again. Firestone also produces the S790 high-performance tyre for the large sports saloons.

The Firestone Multihawk 2 tyres were introduced at the beginning of 2015. Because, the new tyre offered a welcoming fresh design. It is made of innovative new materials to add a touch of class to the mid-range tyre sector.

Firestone Multihawk 2 tyres

Because, the Firestone Multihawk 2 tyres, comes with a new slogan “freedom to drive” and is aimed at the young at heart, (that must include me?). Consequently, the new tyre is more fuel efficient due to a better rolling resistance and a silica added compound, which is the general theme for most tyre manufacturers these days.

Therefore, Firestone drivers will love the nice comfortable journey on their new Firestone Multihawk 2 tyres. The tyre buying public should have few problems finding a Multihawk 2 to fit their car: We offer these tyres IN my Tyre Shop in Halifax, Yorkshire, UK. Finally, the tyre will be introduced in 36 sizes for 13″ to 15″ rims, covering more than 95% of EU demand in the small to compact segment cars.