Tyres

The Toyo tyres I bought for my Mazda 6 lose about 2 psi in a week, that?s a loss of 6-8 psi if you check them monthly. I have never known tyres to lose pressure at this rate before and would like to know if this is the compound of the new tyres or is it poor sealing of the valves. Would using a metal valve cap help or is there any type of sealer that can be applied to the tyres on a regular basis that may slow up the loss of pressure through the tyre wall?

My 2009 XR6 Falcon had done less that 25,000 km and the tyres were scrubbed out and in need of replacing. Ford said they couldn't do anything; that it needed a wheel alignment, which it had already had. Has anyone else had this happen to them?

I followed the owners manual and set the tyres pressures on my 2009 Ford XR6 ute to 210 kpa (30 psi) front and back, but the tyres scrubbed out on the outside without any wear showing on the inside. The tyre retailer says I should have been setting them to 40 psi, not 30. I am 62 years old and do not drive like a hoon. Is Ford at fault?

…and luck with the safety car.We're back in the north where Russell Ingall, Garth Tander and I are the only ones who have competed at every V8 Supercar round.It's a special track for me. I won there in '96 and 2006 and twice in '07. The track is similar to Perth in that the tyres deteriorate quickly.At Barbagallo it's because of the grit that blows on to the track, but at Hidden Valley it's more to do with the surface and the heat, although they tell me it won't be all that hot this year. Anyway, you need a car that looks after its tyres in Darwin. Making that all the more difficult will the set of soft tyres we have to use in Sunday's race.It's the first time this year we've used soft and hard compound Dunlop tyres together in the one race, so that will mix things up for all of us. In the past the normal strategy is to start on a hard tyre and try to finish strongly on the soft set.When to make the tyre switch is the million-dollar question. It will probably depend on safety cars.A couple of years ago Alex Davidson and Shane Van Gisbergen got the timing right and got a huge benefit.I'll be on the radio talking non-stop to my race engineer JJ (Jeromy Moore) to figure out what we do and how early we get on those soft tyres. The critical thing will be to maintain a good lap time for as long as possible and hold on to your tyres.Wear on these soft tyres seems to be a lot higher than it has in previous years. We'd never run soft tyres at Perth before, but we were stunned at how quickly they ran out of grip. There is a fair bit of pit talk about whether this is a different type of tyre compound to what we are used to.In the end, it doesn't matter. We all have the same tyre, so it's the same problem for everyone.The other change this weekend is the return of the popular Top Ten Shootout. The fans love it. The Shootout really builds the tension in qualifying. I think it's a great element to the weekend and really spices things up. I've only had pole here once.It's a tough track with close lap times because it's quite short. The long straight is critical to a quick time. You have to come on to the straight carrying loads of speed and try to slipstream someone for that extra tow.It was great to hear that world touring car champion Andy Priaulx is confirmed for our team at the Gold Coast race this year. Last year he fitted in extremely well.This time I'll obviously be talking to him about Le Mans after my first tastes of endurance racing this year. Maybe we can have a chat about doing something together in the future.It was fantastic to see Audi win Le Mans at the weekend after two of their three cars were involved in a major crash.What a thrilling finish; just 13 seconds to the first of the two Peugeots after 24 hours of high-speed racing.I was a bit bleary-eyed early early this week after staying up to watch as much of the Le Mans as I could as well as catching Casey Stoner win the MotoGP and Mark Webber's third in the F1, both in appalling weather conditions.

We have just bought a nine-year-old car and I believe the spare is the original one. Do tyres have a use-by date even if they haven't been used?

We own a 2002 Mazda SP23, which is a great car except for the space saver spare wheel. Within a three-year period we have had three punctures and a buckled wheel, the latter occurring on a holiday when the tyre stores were closed. I cannot understand how carmakers were allowed to equip their cars with these useless makeshift spares.

I bought a 2007 Ford Focus Cabriolet in 2008 with 19,000 km on it. It has now done 52,000 km and in that time has chewed up 3.5 sets of tyres. I travel 1000 km a week on sealed country and sit on 115 km/h. What do you recommend I should do in relation to the tyres?

According to the owner's manual our Toyota Echo should have 30 psi in the rear tyres and 33 in the front, but each time it goes in for its service it comes back with 38 psi all round. When I queried this with the service centre and they said the higher pressure was better suited to "Australian conditions". I can understand inflating 1 or 2 psi higher might help fuel economy, but by over-inflating by a larger margin does this not represent modifying the vehicle and compromise the roadworthiness?

I read some time ago that you should inflate your tyres 3 to 4 psi above the pressures recommended by the vehicle manufacturer, as they specify a lower figure to give a softer ride. Do you agree with this?

Instead of two races at Barbagallo, we are going back to a three-race format that we haven't had since 2008.What makes it more interesting is that practice on Friday and the Saturday qualifying and race will be on hard tyres, but Sunday's qualifying and two races will be on soft tyres.But probably the most interest of the whole weekend will be the Sunday qualifying where our fastest time gives us the starting position for the first race and our second-fastest time gives us the grid position in the second race. It's going to be one of the most hectic 20-minute qualifying sessions you've ever seen. Instead of just posting one good time, which most people wind themselves up for, you have to do it twice.We should squeeze about three good laps out of a soft tyre, if we're lucky. Plus it's a very short track which means we'll be encountering slow traffic while we're trying to set a time so we'll have to try to find some space. We'll also have to drive more consistently and look after the tyres a bit. You may find some drivers qualify well but race very average because they've taken the life out of the soft tyres that they will have to be use somewhere in one of the races.I love the Wanneroo track and have run well there, but it is low grip and highly abrasive and should destroy soft tyres very quickly.However, the soft tyres lasted longer than we expected in New Zealand, so it's still an unknown.Wanneroo is Garth Tander's home track and he always goes well there, but so do the Garry Rogers cars.I'd also be looking out for the Kelly Bros who stepped up in New Zealand and you can never discount Mark Winterbottom or Will Davison. But they all need to look out for my teammate Jamie Whincup. He had a shocker in New Zealand and every time he has a bad weekend he bounces back. Whether he wins or not, he will be on the podium.I'm expecting a huge crowd this weekend for two reasons. First they missed out last year because their facilities weren't up to scratch. Hopefully that's all sorted out now and over the next couple of years we expect it to turn into an A grade facility.Second is the Australian Superbikes will be racing there this weekend and that always brings in some extras who may not be all that interested in the V8s. Hopefully we can put on a good show for them and win some fans.About 60 per cent of the drivers and team members in the V8s are bike nuts, so they'll be showing a keen interest in the bike races too.