You might not think about your car’s tyres very often, thinking of them in terms of punctures, topping up the air and otherwise just mildly appreciating the comfort of your ride.
But tyres are surprisingly fascinating once you start learning about them: here are five interesting facts about car tyres.
They’ve Got Better with Time
Early tyres were little more than rubber sacs of air, bound onto the old wooden or iron wheels of the time. They were tremendously comfortable compared to what had come before; but modern drivers would quickly give up driving in those bumpy, jerky and very bottom-numbing conditions! Modern tyres might look like old-fashioned tyres, but they are actually small miracles of engineering, carefully crafted to last a long time, supply a superbly comfortable ride and stop promptly when the brakes are deployed.
Goodyear’s Light-Up Tyres
In the 1950s, Goodyear were ahead of their time. They came out with a series of tyres that were translucent to light. Fitting up to eighteen brilliantly coloured lights (all the same colour) inside the tyre made the translucent tyre glow with that colour, adding an exotic brightness to one’s ride. Unfortunately, the tyres were never commercially released and they have faded from the public’s consciousness. However, perhaps, in today’s social media and image-conscious world, it is time for them to make a triumphant return?
Black vs White
Rubber is white, as anyone who owns an eraser knows, so why are tyres black? The answer, oddly enough, comes from Crayola! The first tyres were indeed white, but they were not very durable. A series of experiments led to Crayola offering a scientist some of their new dark black – called carbon black – pigment to try out. He did, and it was soon realised that the black tyres were somehow made stronger and sturdier by the addition of carbon black. And pretty soon, everyone was driving on black, sturdy tyres, with white tyres (usually just the sidewalls) seen as a cosmetic affectation.
You Can Find Their Age Easily
Every tyre is stamped with what is called a dot code. It consists of four digits in an embossed oval: first two numbers are the week of the year the tyre was made, and the last two are the last two digits of the year, so, for example, 5218 would mean the tyres were made in the last week of December in 2018. If you check out your tyres and realise they are older than you think why not get yourself a new pair of tyres with 100% guarantee from Dartford Tyres.
Lots of Discards
Every year about 300 million tyres are discarded as being too worn or otherwise no longer safe to use. Previously, recycling was rare, but today most tyres are recycled. Around one-third of old tyres are made into new items: planters, children’s playgrounds, and the like; another third are stripped and the rubber and metal recycled into new tyres. The remaining third sometimes end up in unsightly heaps or landfill, but efforts continue to recycle an even higher percentage.
