Tyre change and fitting

Tyres are the only contact point between car and road. All safety — braking, cornering grip, wet stability, snow traction — passes through four 'footprints' the size of a palm. That's why saving on tyres is usually a bad decision: the price gap between a good tyre and a generic 'tier 3' is €30-60 per tyre, but wet-braking distance difference at 80 km/h can reach 4-5 metres. Five metres is the difference between stopping and crashing.

At Multipark we don't sell generic tyres without guidance. We start by asking: how do you use the car? City, motorway, mountain? Summer or all-season? Your specific car has minimum load and speed indices (on the registration) that can't be ignored — a BMW 3 Series on H- or T-rated tyres is moving slower than the car allows, and in Portugal that's inspection failure.

We work the full tier 1 range: Michelin, Continental, Pirelli, Goodyear, Bridgestone, Hankook (top of the range), with the ability to order any size the car demands, including runflats, UHP and EV-marked tyres. For mid-value buyers, Nokian, Vredestein, Kumho and Falken are solid options we often recommend.

For specific cases — mandatory winter tyres for Alps or Pyrenees trips, all-season tyres for clients who don't want to store two sets, reinforced tyres for loaded MPVs — we work on consultation. We have access to European and Iberian suppliers with 24-48h delivery.

A proper change is not just 'take old off, put new on'. We start with a rim-friendly dismount (protection for painted or diamond-cut alloy rims, where any scratch during dismount depreciates the rim). We remove old weights and clean the rim edge — any corrosion on the sealing area causes slow pressure loss.

We mount the new tyre with correct orientation (directional tyres have arrows indicating rotation direction — mounting backwards reduces wet grip by up to 40%). We inflate to the car manufacturer's recommended pressure (not the tyre's — they're different). We balance with a machine that considers static and dynamic balancing, and visually validate stick-on weights so they sit hidden inside the rim.

We finish with an optional alignment (but recommended if old tyres showed uneven wear — a sign geometry is out of spec). Without alignment, new tyres can lose 20-30% of life to asymmetric wear.

The 1.6 mm tread rule is the LEGAL MINIMUM, not the ideal. Tyres below 3 mm significantly lose wet grip — and braking tests show dramatically longer distances. We recommend swapping at 3 mm for wet-weather drivers, 2 mm for dry-majority driving.

Watch age too: tyres older than 6 years, even with valid tread, lose properties due to rubber ageing. The manufacture date is the 4-digit DOT on the sidewall. Cars parked in the sun age tyres faster.