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Paul Fincham, Motor Fleet Broker for Bluedrop Services, provides essential tyre maintenance tips for your fleet.
How often do you check your fleet's tyres? Neglecting your fleet's tyres can lead to serious consequences and according to TyreSafe more than 1200 motorists per year are injured in an accident where illegal, or under-inflated tyres are a contributing factor to the accident. If your fleet contains LCVs or HGVs then the tyre also needs to support the weight of the vehicle and its heavy load, thereby further affecting safe acceleration and braking of the vehicle.
Fleet drivers should be encouraged to check their tyres regularly to avoid any issues and identify any problems before they become an issue. Not only is fleet safety a major reason for ensuring the proper maintenance of your tyres, but it can also contribute to better fuel efficiency.
Driving on under-inflated tyres can decrease their rolling resistance and increase fuel consumption. In fact, by driving on tyres that are just 20% under-inflated your fuel economy can be reduced by as much as 3%. Whilst this can sound minimal, when calculated and multiplied by the number of vehicles in your fleet, it can contribute to a very substantial saving in fleet costs.
Poorly maintained tyres can cause issues from a duty of care towards driver's position in terms of ensuring their safety on the road or even at the side of the road making wheel changes, right through to vehicle downtime, premature tyre wear and increased fuel consumption.
Ideally tyres should be checked on a monthly basis or before any long-distance journey. These regular checks can help to save money and optimise tyre efficiency and service life.
For best practice a tyre safety policy can be fully integrated into your other health and safety policies or fleet management policies to ensure that maintenance is taken seriously. Individual's responsibilities must be clearly defined within the policy and communicated regularly, in addition to carrying out regular spot checks.
A guide for what your drivers should look out for includes:
Visual and physical inspection:
Making sure that your driver gets down low enough to conduct a visual inspection is important. Look out for uneven wear and run a hand over the tread area can help to identify the onset of 'cupping' or 'feathering'. Uneven wear can mean that there are alignment or suspension problems that need to be addressed. Alignment issues could also be possible if the car pulls to one side and you need to steer to keep the vehicle moving in a straight line. You should also be checking for any large cuts and internal or external bulges, and remove any stones or other objects found embedded in the tread.
Tread depth:
The minimum legal requirement for tread depth is 1.6mm, but it is wise to change tyres when they reach 2mm. You can check that a tyre is road legal by placing a 20p coin into the tread and if the outer band on the coin is still visible then the tyre needs changing.
Tyre inflation:
Drivers should regularly check the air pressure on tyres. Fleets can lower fuel costs and get thousands of additional miles out of tyres with correct tyres pressure. A vehicles tyre pressure can affect the tyre's speed capability, load carrying capacity, handling, and response and wear rate.
They need to be inflated according to the manufacturer's recommendations which can be found either in the inner driver's door sill or in the vehicle handbook.
It is advised that tyre pressures are checked on cold tyres that have ideally travelled less than 2 miles for the best measure. When tyres are under-inflated the tyre contains insufficient air to support the weight of the vehicle and adversely affects acceleration, braking and cornering. However, over-inflated tyres can reduce the handling quality of the vehicle too, and cause increased wear in the centre of the tread.
If your fleet vehicles have spare tyres, then it is important to check these also.
Paul has 24 years' experience in the motor insurance industry. As Motor Fleet Broker for Bluedrop Services, Paul specialises in Motor Fleet Insurance and offers advice and support to customers managing Motor Fleets.
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