The company carried out a sample check of 100 vehicles recently across multiple fleets: 17% of the tyres were under- or over-inflated by at least 25%, prompting a red flag, with a further 21% flagged amber.
Andy Congrave, sales director at Wheely-Safe, says: “Twenty of the vans we checked were brand new, yet more than half of the tyres were under-inflated, a quarter of them seriously so. This is particularly concerning given they’d just arrived on a customer’s fleet, fresh from the supplying dealer’s pre-delivery inspection process.”
The inspections were carried out by Wheely-Safe as part of trials for Michelin Light Fleet, a new low-cost retrofit tyre pressure monitoring system.
Wheely-Safe calculated the average potential saving per vehicle to be £150 per year, taking into account improved fuel consumption and longer tyre life from correctly inflated tyres.
The Michelin TPMS Light Fleet system provides visual warnings when a tyre reaches 15% under-inflation and an audible alert at 25% loss of pressure. Using a handy tyre pressure checker, the system also enables drivers, technicians and fleet managers to check all pressures across a vehicle in a few seconds.
The standard kit includes a solar powered windscreen-mounted receiver, four TPMS sensors, a pressure checker plus a spanner and four locking wheel nuts, and costs £89.95. Additional sensors are available.