REDUCING TYRE LIFE.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18536, 5 April 1930, Page 15 (Supplement)

REDUCING TYRE LIFE.

Misalignment is a costly error. Suspect it at once if rapid tread wear is noticed. Unnecessary acceleration and harsh and uneven braking grind off tyre treads. Fast running over stones, potholes, and wavy surfaces reduces tyre life. Drivers should avoid tramlines, especially points; these may cut deeply into the tyre. It is uneconomical to run at high speeds when not necessary; the rate of tread wear increases enormously as speed rises. Regular inspection of tyres and wheel rims ensures efficiency, obviates delays and roadside repairs, and promotes economy. Tyres should be removed at fixed periods—it is a good plan to inspect one each week in rotation —rims cleaned, and if necessary, painted, tubes examined for fitness, and all cuts- or damage to covers repaired. ELECTRICAL ACCESSORIES. Extra current-consuming accessories such as horns, inspection lamps and spotlights should all be connected up in the positive battery circuit. Where an ammeter of the central-zero type is fitted, the connections should be such that the current taken by the spotlight and inspection lamp are indicated on the dial, but not so the current consumed by the horn. Some horns take a fairly heavy current to operate them, often as much as six amperes, and this, added to that taken by the lights and the additional fittings, may be too much for the meter; in this case it will cause the needle to go farther than the full marked-off limit of the dial, thus straining it, or throwing it off its pivot. Then horn should, therefore, be joined up between the ammeter and the battery, and the extra lamps to the same switch-box terminal as the ammeter.