Tyres are a very important part of your car's safety and good tyres are essential for safety you, your family and other motorists. Tyres should be examined regularly for excessive wear or damage. Under normal driving conditions your tyres should be checked at least once a month. If you do a lot of miles they should be checked more regularly. What you should be looking for is tyre deterioration and scuffing. If your tyres are over six years old they may be deteriorating and it would be worth a visit to your professional tyre retailer.

Check the air pressure in all your tyres, including spare. The correct tyre pressures are usually in the owner's handbook or on the engine compartment firewall. It is a good idea to "over-inflate" your tyres by about 6.9kpa (1lb/in2). The car manufactures tend to suggest slightly lower pressures as this gives a more comfortable ride. Tyre life, fuel economy and the vehicle's stability will be affected. The vehicle's suspension should also be checked the make sure the wheel alignment is correct. Driving a car that needs a wheel alignment can very rapidly destroy a set of tyres. The same is true of wheel balancing. In addition to the economic and safety aspects, it can make a dramatic difference to the 'feel' of your car.

Check the tyres for rips or torn sidewalls or a nail poking out. Sharp stones lodged in the tread can also damage the tyres. Take note of any warning signs that can ensure that you get the best value for money from your tyres by correcting minor problems early. A quick and easy check of the depth of tread is use a cheap tyre depth gauge and if you don't want to go to the expense of a tyre depth gauge, the head of a match is about the size of the minimum depth required. The legal minimum depth of a tyre is 1.5 mm but it is wise to replace your tyres at 2 mm. In wet weather the grip is greatly reduced as tread depth is reduced.

Don't be deceived by the feel when driving in the dry, even bald tyres can often give reasonable grip on good roads in the dry because there is actually more rubber in contact with the road. Without reasonable tread depth the tyres cannot clear any water from the road and they will aquaplane over the water, a very scary and dangerous situation. If this happens you will lose virtually all control, it feels very like trying to run on ice.

REMEMBER. The condition of your tyres could mean whether you stop or not in an emergency.

The time that cam belt lasts, varies from one manufacturer to another. As an average guide 50 to 80 thousand kilometers is a safe time to think about changing belts. If you don't know what a cam belt does, here is a brief description. A cam belt is a toothed rubber belt, that the crankshaft turns, which in turn turns the camshaft. It may also drive other components, waterpumps, distributor etc. The main cause for concern if a cambelt does break, is that on some engines the pistons can hit the valves which can cause a lot of damage to the engine. A small oil leak onto the cam belt will shorten its life.
If you want to know if your engine has a cam belt, and would damage the engine if it did break, phone an MTA Member so that they can check for you. A short phone call to your MTA Member could save your engine.

For "ordinary" antifreeze, the vehicle manufacturers  generally recommend coolant changes every two to three years or 50,000 Kms. Others say it's not a bad idea to change the coolant every year for maximum corrosion protection -- especially in vehicles that have aluminium heads, blocks or radiators. But such recommendations may soon be obsolete. Several antifreeze suppliers have just recently introduced "long life" antifreeze formulations that claim to provide protection for four years or 80,000 Kms. A major vehicle manufacturer has introduced a new five year, 160,000 Kms antifreeze in its 1996 cars and light trucks. The new coolant is called "Dex-Cool" and is dyed orange to distinguish it from ordinary antifreeze (which is green).