至尊英语阅读资料之汽车专题第66集.pdfVIP

Automotive articles 66 [1626]Car Tyres - Safety Issue - Serious Defect Serious warning - Car tires may have a hidden defect that could cause drivers to lose control on the road. A lot of us think that if our car tires look good, are properly inflated and have a good amount of tread, that they are probably safe to go out on the road with. But few drivers ever think about the age of their tires - as we are about to learn, this can be a tragic mistake. Tires, especially the spare tire, could be up to a decade old, making them an accident waiting to happen. A ten year old tire can have deteriorated to the point of having rotted inside, when the tire is used at highway speeds the effect can be disastrous. In tires, the materials that hold the belts together -- the rubber materials -- will degrade and lose its elasticity, and those properties will get to the point where the tire can no longer hold together, said vehicle safety advocate Sean Kane. Also, in warmer climates tires start to break-down even earlier. Six years, or older, is when we start to see a disproportionate rise in tire failures. An American government report on tire aging, analysing insured tire claims from several states, found that 84 percent of claims were for tires over 6 years old.Even never used tires, such as those bought from the showroom floor, in the same age bracket, are just as dangerous, as they may indeed have been sitting there for a decade or more, just waiting to be sold. Many auto-makers now put warnings in their new-car manuals, warning against using tires more than 6 years old. What is really needed are expiration dates stamped on the product, similar to many other consumer products, from washing machines to yogurt . The tire industry disagrees, stating that expiration dates will only give consumers a false sense of security, Dan Zielinski from the Rubber Manufacturers Association says: Consumers may view the use-by-date as the minimum service-time they can us