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We had our cars MOT a few weeks back and one of our tyres was flagged as an advisory, which means it will need replacing sooner rather than later.
There are lots of reasons why you should keep on top of tyre safety – they’re such an integral part of the car but an easy consumable to overlook. Lots of garages will check your tyres for free, and that’s the case whether you’re in a big city like Manchester, a smaller town like Basingstoke or even in smaller villages. Garages are always happy to check tyres and where they are in terms of the legal limit and advise accordingly.
We have some travels planned later in the summer in a bid to make the most of our National Trust membership. I have family in the south and we might make a trip down there and see them as well as calling into The Vyne (A National Trust property) which is close to Basingstoke and looks fabulous. It is a bit of a drive down there for us, so we will have to make sure we do all the necessary vehicle checks beforehand.
Why you should keep your tyres safe
There are lots of reasons for keeping a check on your tyres. Tyres are not cheap to replace – for our car it’s around £100 per tyre. By making sure the air pressure is correct you’re making sure that they wear evenly. If the tyres are deflating regularly it could be a sign of a slow puncture – this is a pretty simple thing to fix usually as a garage can remove the nail or object that’s causing the puncture and repair the tyre, usually for less than £15.
Another reason to keep your tyres in tip-top shape is that properly inflated tyres make your fuel efficiency much better – meaning you get more miles out of a tank of petrol.
Checks we make
Before we head off we always make sure that the washer bottles are filled, the petrol and oil are fine and that we have various things in the car, such as spare change for parking and making sure that the sat nav is fully updated. We also do a check of the children’s car seats – often taking them out and hoovering around them and placing them back in again. Whilst I am confident they’re not moving around, I do like the reassurance of knowing we have double checked them.
We also make sure we check the air pressure in the tyres, as well as making sure they don’t need replacing. You’d expect to get around 20,000 miles on average, from your tyres so for most people this is probably something that needs replacing every 18 months – 2 years. There’s nothing worse than getting stuck in an unfamiliar town or city and needing to find a mechanic! That said if we do get stuck in Basingstoke I know that tyres are available at Headley Tyres.
Plan your rest breaks in
Travelling with three young children means planning in rest breaks and snack breaks. I always take plenty of water with us, and we get a bag of sweets to share for long journeys. For particularly long journeys I try and have some simple snacks to hand. Bananas are good, as well as malt loaf or grapes. There’s not a chance we’d manage to get from Manchester to Basingstoke without a comfort stop so we take a look at where might be a good place to stop for a bite to eat, trip to the loo and a good leg stretch. There are certain service stations that we know work well for us, so we make sure we have them planned in.
I’m really looking forward to our travels this summer, and if you can suggest any other stops near The Vyne do let me know.
