A flat in January behaves worse than the same flat in July, and it is worth knowing why. Cold rubber is stiffer and less willing to flex, so a tyre that has lost its air is more likely to be pushed off its seat on the rim by a turn that would have been survivable in summer. Cold also drops the pressure in every tyre on the car, which is why so many of these calls come in on the first hard frost with drivers convinced they have picked something up. And a cold casing is less forgiving of being run on at all, so the distance you can get away with shrinks just as the weather makes you want to press on for somewhere warm. All of which argues for stopping sooner in winter than you otherwise might.
The practical version is simple. If a tyre is down on a cold morning, do not set off along the High Road hoping it warms up. It will not. Leave the car on the drive or wherever it has stopped, get somewhere out of the cold if you can, and the van comes to it with its own lighting. The A1000 is wide and fast and there is no tyre garage on it, so there is nowhere useful to reach anyway. Cars, SUVs and 4x4s, out every hour of the year, usually with you in 30 to 60 minutes.
The pressure light coming on is not the same as a flat, and the difference is worth money. So the first thing that happens when we arrive in N20 is a proper look with the wheel off, rather than a guess with a gauge. The Totteridge phone and the Oakleigh Park phone ring the same fitter, any hour. Midnight in Woodside Park, midday in Totteridge, the same call either way.
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Whetstone stretches along a wide fast High Road with no tyre garage on it and quiet lanes towards Totteridge either side, so there is nothing useful within reach on a doubtful tyre at the best of times. In winter that gets shorter still, because cold rubber gives you less room for error. Leave the car standing, go and be warm, and let the work come to the kerb.
A driver near Oakleigh Park found every tyre reading down and assumed the worst. It was the temperature. The pressures were set properly and nothing else needed doing.
A flat tyre turned into a bay on a freezing morning. The stiff cold rubber came off its seat during the manoeuvre, which is a summer tyre would probably have tolerated.
A car left at the kerb on a bitter evening with the owner watching from a shop doorway. The fitter worked under his own lamp and nobody had to stand about in it.
Usually yes, and it is worth checking before assuming a puncture. Four even readings on a frosty day generally want air. One outlier is a different matter.
It makes it less forgiving. Stiff rubber is more easily unseated from the rim, so the distance you can cover before doing real harm is shorter than it would be in warm weather.
No. A tyre with no air in it does not recover with use, and driving is exactly what finishes it off. Leave it where it is.
Yes, every night of the year. The equipment lives in the van and the fitter brings his own lighting, so a dark cold evening is ordinary rather than exceptional.
No. Where the vehicle is parked somewhere sensible, go inside and leave a phone number. Nothing about the work needs watching and there is no sense in freezing for half an hour.
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