3 Ways to Feel Safe in Your Car
The time when you start thinking about the safety of your car will come earlier or later. Some people such as politicians and businessmen are worried about their own safety and the safety of their automobile. Other people simply don’t want to lose their time and feel frustrated when they have to change a flat tire in the rain, at night or on a motorway, being late for an important meeting.
Now a solution how to feel safe in your own car has appeared due to the technology of run-flat tires. Of course, such tires are used in luxirious cars or in sportcars, but at first this technology was used in a very small car - Mini 1275GT in 1974.
To describe how this system works we shold emphasize the main essence of run-flat tires: when the tire is punctured, the tireair under a high pressure is blown out and the tire becomes hollow. What is more surprising, the driver doesn’t feel any uncomfort what can’t be said about simple flat tires.
There are some types of run-flat tires. Self-supporting run-flat tires have thick stiff side-walls, which don’t allow the rubber to sag and maintain a normal work of wheels even in cases of a sudden fall of pressure. Exactly this type of magic run-flat tires was firstly used in Mini. As a rule such tires allow a car to drive for 50 miles at around 50 miles per hour. It may become impossible to repair it, if it has a puncture in the sidewall or at the edge of the tread.
Self-sealing run-flat tires have an extra lining inside the tire. When your tire is punctured, this extra-lining will provide a seal around a sharp object and prevent it from causing damage to the whole tire.
Auxiliary-supported run-flat tires provide run-flat capability on the weel by minimizing the task which has to be fullfilled by the tire. So this technology improves the riding qualities of your car.
Ecological Tires By Michelin
With Michelin tires You can spare gallons of fuel annually thus contributing to the protection of the environment!
How it all happens? During the ride the tire deforms to “hold” the road better thus ensuring comfort and confident steering. But the deformation leads to the tire’s heating what results in the loss of the part of the engine power. As a result every fifth full fuel tank or 20% of the total fuel consumption are spent on the struggling with the event that is called “rolling resistance”. Obviously, it cannot but cause negative consequences for the environment due to the increased amount of exhaust gases that create “greenhouse effect”.
So, major efforts of tire manufacturers are to be aimed, on the one hand, at the reducing rolling resistance and, on the other hand, at the retaining of the performance of the tire. The Michelin company draws special attention to the development of technologies that could save the problem.
Already in 1946 the Michelin company succeeded having reduced rolling resistance by 30% thanks to the production of the tires with the radial carcass. But the real revolution on the passenger tire market took place in 1992 when the Michelin company managed to add silica (silicone dioxide) to the rubber compound. Thanks to the new compound the company succeeded in reducing energy losses that occur during the deformation thus having increased the fuel efficiency of its tires.
As a result the driver was able to spare up to 3% of his fuel expenses. If all the passenger cars in the US had been equipped with “green” tires the saving would have amounted to $ 5mln. The amount of exhaust gas discharge in this case would have been reduced by 7,5 million tons what is equal to the amount of harmful substances absorbed annually by nearly 300 million trees.
Why Are Japanese Used Tires So Good?
Numerous tire specialists and regular drivers all over the world note that the majority of Japanese used tires are of extremely high quality. There are a few reasons for that:
1. When buying a new car in Japan its cost also includes free maintenance for 2-3 years. Such maintenance includes not only the changing of oil and other operational liquids, testing and adjustment of all major components but also the changing of tires regardless of their condition. As the majority of the Japanese have two or three cars and their annual mileage rarely exceeds 7 thousand miles the condition of such tires is very good.
2. Japan is a highly-developed country with a high level of consumption and well-developed system of goods promotion. New models of tires appear every 2-3 years and many Japanese get convinced by the commercials that proclaims the supremacy of the new models. So they change the tires even after driving a few thousand miles on them.
3. In Japan when mounting winter or summer tires many firms accept the used tires to stimulate the demand. One should just pay the difference in price between the new and the used tires.
All these reasons lead to the emergence of a great number of quality tires with little wear. Such tires are exported to Australia, New Zealand, China, Russia etc. Many Japanese also buy used tires for their cars.
The advantage of the Japanese used tires can also be explained by the high requirements in respect of the quality of the goods that are sold on the domestic market.
That’s why such tires are not heavy, flexible, provide low noise level and ensure long service life.
The Most Original Way to Decorate Your Garden with Tires
There are many solutions to the problem of using automobile tires after their service life has finished and they can’t be used anymore as essential parts of your car. But we should mention one more unusual usage of tires as garden flowerbeds. You can do them yourself and decorate your garden in an original way!
Usually tires are used to create a flowerbed in the following way: the sides of a tire are cut and the tires are put on the ground or on any rising ground with a protector, turned outside. Sometimes a corrugated part of a tire’s surface is painted. It looks not bad. But you may recognize at once, that these flowerbeds are made of used automobile tires.
But flowerpots, made from tires, have rather unusual and interesting forms. Their worn out inattractive protector of an outer cover is turned inside, and its flat internal part is turned outside. The flowerpots, made in such a way look very attractive, and at once it is impossible to understand that they are made from tires.
Let’s turn our attention to materials, which are necessary to make flowerpots from automobile tires:
- automobile tirecover;
- cement;
- sand;
- stones;
- soapy water;
- clearcole.
You need to cut the sides of the tires and make the carcass for your future flowerpot of round or figured form. Figured carving will make your garden vase more beautiful, but you will have to work hard to be content with your work in future. At first it is necessary to draw lines of cutting on tires’ sides and then cut the rubber. To make this work simpler you’d better moisten a knife with a soapy water. To create more complex pattern you should use an electrofret.
After you have finished the cutting you need to turn tire cover inside, which is not difficult. Have you managed with this work? So, now turn its internal part outside. This process requires some efforts and skills. Use clearcole to make a tire more like a real flowerpot which won’t you even resemble the material, from which it was made. Now you can paint your work of art. Try to use light colors in order to prevent your future flowerpot from the sun heat. After several days, the flowerpot is ready to be filled with ground and you can plant flowers into it.
Flowerpots, made from automobile tires have some advantages in comparison with usual plastic flowerpots. They won’t broke and will serve you long. And, what is more important, using tires as an extraodinary decoratation of your garden you contribute to the improvement of the environmental situation.
