Tires. How to distinguish a good tire service?

If we changed tires in the spring and the workshop serviced us in record time, we probably did not fully realize what the mechanic's rush could cost us. Either fast or good, there are no compromises with tires.

And knowing how it should be done right is priceless. Seasonal tire replacement, contrary to what it seems, is not an easy and banal task that can be completed in three or even twenty-three minutes. That is, you can - quickly, on your head, damaging tires and wheels. Changing tires requires the knowledge, experience and skills of mechanics, as well as good and well-maintained equipment. Any mistake made when changing a tire can be costly to the owner of the tire and wheel. Invisible damage can only appear on the way - and this is fraught with loss of health and life.

That is why responsible and professional services attach great importance to every detail of tire replacement. But how to find such workshops? How do you know that our tires are in the hands of professionals? How to make sure that the services we pay for in the workshop are of high quality?

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Changing tires is too big a deal to be treated as just another chore that requires our time to check the checklist. So how do we recognize a website that deserves our trust?

• Duration of service - after that, we can conclude what type of workshop we are dealing with. Professional tire fitting is not a pit stop at a race. Tire changes can be done professionally and without damage, or cheaply and quickly. One or the other. If someone was able to change a set of tires in just a dozen or so minutes, that means they took shortcuts at many important points in the entire process, thus putting the driver at risk. A professional replacement of a set of 16-17” tires with light alloy wheels that meets all requirements should take at least 40 minutes if the stand is serviced by one service master;

Among the main mistakes made by service technicians working in a hurry are, in particular, damage to the bead and tire cord during forced assembly. Such an error can, unfortunately, lead to a complete loss of steering and control over the car by the driver when driving at high speed. Some hurried "specialists" also set too high inflation pressure when the bead comes off the rim mounting lug - this causes irreversible deformation of the tires, in which drivers invest money, and creates the risk of the bead slipping off the rim. while driving.

– There is no place for racing in professional workshops – quality and precision are important. Remember that an integral part of wheel balancing – unfortunately often underestimated by bad workshops – is cleaning the surface of the hub and rim that are in contact with each other. This is the surface on which the correct assembly of the wheel depends, and if not cleaned, it can lead to vibrations, noise and reduced driving comfort. Similar to cleaning the place where the weights were glued after the previous balancing. There can be no proper balancing procedure if the service technician skipped these steps. Also, using a short path and using only an air or electric impact wrench to fully tighten the wheel bolts to full force can even damage the rims. After such maintenance, if it happens that the driver has to change the wheel on the road, it will be completely impossible to unscrew the screws on his own. A decent service is only to pre-tighten the wheel on the hub and tighten the bolts to the appropriate torque using a torque wrench, says Piotr Sarnecki, CEO of the Polish Tire Industry Association (PZPO).

• Price - the abnormally low cost of tire replacement services can only indicate one thing: there are no professionals in the workshop who should receive appropriate remuneration for their knowledge and experience. In addition, cheap servicers are likely to use old, unattended machines and tools from a bygone era on a daily basis that ruin modern tires. The owners of such workshops often do not invest in business development and save even on fairly frequent maintenance, knowing that a group of certain regular, not very knowledgeable customers will still bring them a steady income. What we “save” with a bad workshop will come back to us multiplied in the form of breakdowns on the track and in the aftermath of a collision;
• Quality - that is, the appropriate tools and understanding of how to use them. Cars are changing, they run on bigger and bigger wheels - a few years ago 14-15 inch wheels were standard, now 16-17 inch wheels. Workshops that do not invest in new machines and their service and maintenance cannot properly service tires to the fullest. It's hard to blame drivers for not knowing that tools with plastic covers and tire changer attachments should be used in the workshop to avoid scratching the rim and corroding it or not making good contact with the tire. As customers, we rarely have a complete understanding of the process of changing tires, and we can judge whether the service technician is using the machines available in the workshop correctly.

Fortunately, this alleviates the fact that low quality tire replacements tend to translate into low service costs.

The Polish Tire Industry Association (PZPO) is well aware of the problem of drivers finding a workshop they can trust and trust with seasonal tire changes. The market of almost 12 thousand tire fittings in Poland is very diverse in terms of service and technical culture. Too many workshops replace tires unacceptably, resulting in tire damage.

Therefore, PZPO has introduced the Tire Certificate, a system for evaluating and rewarding professional services based on independent equipment and qualification audits carried out by TÜV SÜD auditors. The Tire Certificate helps workshops improve quality, which is critical for safety, and increases their competitiveness, while giving customers the confidence that the service will be performed by well-trained professionals.

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