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Sadly we are coming to the end of what wasn’t a bad summer other than August that was complete rubbish! Nights are drawing in and whilst we are still enjoying some late sunshine we should be making plans for the winter months ahead.

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Fleet News has provided a few pointers and given us a few things to think about. Inevitably there will be a few days when it will be difficult, if not impossible, to either drive to work or use public transport (bit of wind, snow, leaves on the train line, volcanoes erupting, landslides etc.) so do you have a back up plan that enables you and/or staff to work from home in the case of an emergency?

Don’t forget if you employ staff you are responsible for their health and safety and could leave yourself exposed if you insist they come to work when the authorities or experts have advised against it. With regard to your car, have you considered swapping to winter tyres to reduce tyre wear and increase grip. Many of the national tyre fitters now offer a service whereby they will swap over tyres for you between summer and winter and store your summer tyres till spring.

Fleet News also suggest that you consider 4WD cars but I disagree. I don’t recall one day last winter when a 4WD car would have avoided taking any time off work and I have to say that unless you have taken a 4WD course the chances are that you will be no better off driving a 4WD car than a 2WD car. Oh and a little tip if you are stuck in snow, try letting a little air out of the drive tyres to increase grip or better still buy a set of snow chains and a spade to dig yourself out.

Make sure that your car has been serviced and there is enough anti freeze in your radiator and plenty in your windscreen wash. In fact make up some anti-freeze screen wash and keep it in a bottle in the boot, it is so easy to run out of screen wash on a trip and end up not being able to see out of the windscreen. Give yourself a few minutes to sit in the car with the engine running in order to warm up the heater.

If it is cold or raining and you drive straight off you will find the windscreen heavily misting up before it starts to demist making it impossible to see where you are going. Remember it is an offence to drive a car if you cannot see through the screen due to either dirt or mist. Oh and another tip, get yourself some Marigold rubber gloves and stick them in the boot.

Snow chain at the front wheel. Photographer: Devchonka. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The best type of gloves to wear when clearing snow or frost off the car or even to wear when fitting snow chains or digging out the snow. They are totally waterproof and surprisingly warm. I’ll add a few more tips into my next newsletter as the countdown to winter continues. There are lots more tips to come so make sure you read them and stay safe! By Graham Hill

Emission Analytics have found that the economy ratings on tyres can be misleading and inaccurate. The way that the economy ratings are shown at the moment may not give the full story if their findings are to be believed.

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

The company specialises in emission data and carried out a series of tests on tyres with various efficiency ratings only to find that those with a lower efficiency rating can perform just as well as those with a high efficiency rating. The test compared F- and B- rated tyres and found that between 40 – 55 mph the more expensive B- rated tyre only saved about 4% in fuel.

The gap between the two only widened when the speed increased to 70mph when the economy tyre returned a 13% saving. The company found that at mid-range speeds, F rated tyres can perform as well as B rated tyres.

Nick Molden, founder of the company, expressed concern that buyers and fleets were paying extra for tyres that weren’t providing the return they were expecting if the journeys are confined to urban routes. He went on to say, ‘Tyre-efficiency labels don’t provide enough information for buyers to make an informed choice.’ He is calling for action to better inform tyre buyers who could be making decisions based on fiction. By Graham Hill

After the recent F1 disasters with their tyres exploding on a far too regular basis you would think that Pirelli would concentrate on making them safer.

Used Tires (Photo credit: www.ericcastro.biz)

Well in an effort to multitask it would seem that the designers have not only improved the reliability but they have brought out a new series of road tyres that they say reduces the road noise in a car by 50%.

Assuming that we won’t see a repeat of the F1 blowouts it’s worth noting that developments continue on road cars. The first cars to benefit from this new technology are the Audi RS6 Avant and RS7. They will be offered as optional extras (no I don’t know how much), but I guess they must be expensive if they are only offered as options on two of their top of the range cars.

In order to reduce the noise the tyres have a layer of noise cancelling sponge under the tread blocks. Pirelli says it reduces the amount of vibration and noise through the steering wheel.

Let’s hope the tyres don’t suffer the same problems faced by Hamilton & co.

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• Webber slams F1 tyres (sbs.com.au)

I’m now going to list a pile of tips from experts that should help you have a trouble free winter in your car. More and more experts are recommending that you fit winter tyres. They are of a different compound and certainly provide extra grip at lower temperatures and are much safer but having a second set of tyres is expensive so you should make Read more »

As I reported before anyone else Autoquake are now in administration and the administrators are trying to find buyers. One of the selling points, as has been widely reported is the number of visits made to their website, believed to be around 5.5 million last year. I have to stay that statistic is absolutely meaningless because if it meat that the company was successful why has it just collapsed? It’s a bit like saying you could put any shop in the middle of a high street which attracts lots of ‘traffic’ Read more »

Image via Wikipedia

Years ago when run flat tyres were introduced they seemed like a great idea but drivers were then told that they couldn’t mix up run flats with conventional tyres and you couldn’t get a puncture repaired. Once the tyre had been punctures, whilst the run flat would get you home the bad news was that you then needed to replace the tyre. However, I have found out that this isn’t necessarily the case. It was highlighted recently when a lady driver managed to get a nail in her run flat tyre fitted to a Read more »

The Graham Hill gadget of the week is a tyre pressure warning system. I’ve reported on many occasions the importance of running tyres at the correct pressure. Not only is it a legal requirement punishable by points and a fine, tyres wear quicker, grip is reduced and fuel consumption can increase by up to 10%. We all know that we should check our tyres daily and at worst fortnightly (as suggested by tyre Read more »

It seems that every week I have something to say about tyres – and this week isn’t going to be any different. It would seem that there has been a growing trend towards the removal of a spare wheels from new cars, first of all replacing a full spare with a skinny emergency wheel and more recently with a puncture repair kit consisting of either a can of foam that you squirt into the tyre inflating it and sealing the Read more »

A Trading Standard team based in Birmingham have found that an incredible 90% of used tyres being sold by independent tyre dealers and fitted on cars don’t meet minimum legal standards. Among the tyres inspected officers found some with nails embedded in them as well as one tyre that was 17 years old. The investigation, run by the city council and overseen by Trading Standards boss, Chris Neville was a Read more »

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