AGENTS AND CUSTOMERS' TYRES.
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Some Observations on the Importance of Giving Tyre " Service " By " Vim."
ADVICE on the care of tyres is now recognized as one of those practical services which motor agents and garage proprietors generally, must give 'to their customers, whether those customers are owners of touring cars or of commercial vehicles. The old idea that the more the purchaser mishandles his purchases the better for trade, whiCh is still clung to in a few branches of commerce, no longer finds adherents in the ranks of decent motor traders. It always was a, fallacious rule, because since the earliest days of trading it _ has been accepted as an axiom that the cheaper the goods the wider is the market. As cheapness does not really mean the price for which an article is sold, but the value which the purchaser gets for his • money in terms of use, it follows that, however cheaply an article may be sold, the purchaser may easily make it very dear by misusing it, which is bad, not good, for trade.
Considerable tact is needed by' the agent who is bent on seeing that his customers get the best possible service from their tyres. Such goods have become so much an everyday affair that it is hard to make the average user understand that there is a vast difference between the cost per mile of a wellcared-for tyre and one that is allowed to go to wrack and ruin in its own sweet way, with an occasional push to help it arrive at the scrap heap quickly. Thanks to prejudices, kept alive by people who will not realize that the retail side of' the motor trade has as high a proportion of upright and competent members as most other industries—a proportion which is steadily improving, too, as the black sheep eliminate themselves in the ordinary process of evolution—tyre service advice is sometimes ignored or even resented by owners of commercial vehicles. Especially is this -the ease where tyres are bought " through a friend who gives me trade terms, you know," or where owners pin the reliability of their road transport to clearance lines of tyres. Perfectly honest and unbiased suggeStions from the legitimate -trader are often regarded by such customers as criticisms prompted by jealousy. Nevertheless, so long as one continues to peg away at doing the right thing, nothing but good can come of it in the end. Good, that is to say, in the shape of orders for tyres the next time any are wanted.
The Abuses of Overloading and Undertyring.
Overloading, and its counterpart, undertyring, are about the commonest abuses that tyres meet with in the hands 13f commercial users. There aught to be no undertyring in these days, but there is, and it is not far to seek. It occurs where commercial vehicle manufacturers fit sizes that are only just up to the weights that their chassis are scheduled to carry. When a tyre maker lists a tyre as suitable for a certain weight, he means " under normal conditions," with a bit to spare. Now, the stresses to which a tyre is subjected in use do not .depend' on weight: of equal or greater importance are speed and road surface. As a wheel drops into a hollow it impacts upon the side which it has to climb with
a force that increases with the speed of the vehicle, while simultaneously it. has to support the momen tarily swollen weight of the load due to its attempt to follow the axle into the hollow, the spring taking the shock of checking the fall, but conveying it faith fully to the tyre. A size of pneumatic or solid tyre, which may be quite all right in theory, may be quite all wrong if a vehicle is habitually driven over bad o42
roads at high speeds. The remedy is to insist on slower driving with loads or on heavier tyres being fitted.
Overloading is, of course, rampant. Only unwearying education by manufacturers of chassis and tyres will, I fear, remedy it ; but the agent can do his part by impressing the foolishness of the crime on the overloaders with whom he comes personally in contact. Overloading is not to be confused with undertyring. For the latter, there is a physical cure ; for the former, there is none, only a course of mental treatment to be tried. On no account must wheels be altered to cope with overloading, for the tyres bear but a small portion of the sufferings of the whole vehicle, and the confirmed overloader might be induced to risk a few' more hundredweights on the strength of bigger tyres.
Overloading Effects on Pneumatics and Solids.
A distinction between the effect of overloading pneumatic and solid tyres should be noted by those to whom the point has not already occurred. Whereas the pneumatic can put up. with an excessive
burden temporarily without experiencing much. harm, provided the extra load does not actually burst the cover or split the, canvas casing, a solid may be very seriously injured in a few minutes. of running if its capacity is tried too far. One or two smashing jolts over deep pot-holes with a full load aboard may crush the rubber band to such an extent that it will part from its base at the places where the blows are taken.
It is unnecessary here to describe tyre repairs; the motor agent reader either has the knowledge himself or can readily obtain it from one of the excellent publications on the subject which are issued by some of the best-known tyre makers, or from that complete treatise on the art of vulcanizing which HarveyFrost and Co., Ltd., publish. It goes without saying that, in order to be in a position to give proper tyre service, the agent or garage proprietor is bound either to possess his own vulcanizing plant or to be in close touch with a nearby firm who can undertake his repairs for him. Also, a " free air " supply for customers' benefit is dlmost essential in these days.