Get yourself a Michelin Uptin, which is airless. Well worth it. My 2015 pHEV HAD A PUNCTURE AFTER 9 YEARS. I had to call the tow truck out to take me to puncture repair shop. Absolute nightmare. A whole day of work down the drain. NEVER USE THE EMERGENCY CAN OF GUNGE as the tyre has to be replaced, and cannot be repaired. My tyres were new with lots of thread. Here goes:
Will the day come when we’re all routinely driving around on airless tyres? Do we even need them?
Tyre makers have been tinkering with the idea of reinventing the wheel for a number of years now, but so far, the brainchild of Scotsmen Robert Thomson and later John Boyd Dunlop, inventors of the pneumatic tyre, has yet to be bettered.
In January, Michelin announced the Uptis, its concept for a puncture-proof tyre, would go on trial in Singapore on a fleet of DHL vans. The Uptis airless tyres will be introduced during the course of 2023, the plan being to overcome the costly problem of downtime and tyres scrapped through punctures on last-mile delivery vehicles.
The trial raises the question: could the puncture-proof tyres be an advantage for car drivers? Michelin says the tyres are intended for cars as well as light vans and says they are more resilient to ‘road hazards’ than run-of-the-mill tyres.
Because there’s no air involved, the Uptis will also overcome the problem that plagues not just delivery fleets working on a high-duty cycle but the average car driver too: neglecting tyre pressures. Pneumatic tyres rely to a large degree on being run at the correct pressures to perform properly.
