Almost a decade ago, two automotive giants clashed with each other in an epic-battle over their competency that had endangered the lives of some unsuspecting SUV owners.
While the verdict was out and the dust of the blame-game settled down, there emerged an important regulation on passive safety systems for automobiles.
That's correct, we are indeed talking about the Ford Motor Co VS Firestone Tire Co battle of Y2K.
Coming to the Indian scenario, isn't it amazing that we often overlook the presence of something as commonly available as air. We only realize its importance once we have been rendered immobile due to a total lack of pressure in our tires or when we are presented with a huge bill for our overworked suspension components.
However, one can suffer just as much, maybe even more with a loss of 4-5 psi of pressure. The symptoms are immediately evident. The steering controls become heavy, braking gets dodgy, punctures, side-wall cuts; etc become more frequent, fuel bills shoot up, tire wear increases and suspension systems go for a toss.
Despite such expensive consequences, most of us fail to check the tire pressure in our vehicles on a weekly basis. And among the few that do so, many don't do it the right way.
To counter this, Mahindra & Mahindra introduced Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems (TPMS)under the 'Tyre-tronics' moniker in 2008 when it launched the 'mHawk' engine nomenclature.
This system allows the vehicle owner to monitor the pressure in the vehicles tires in real-time. M&M should be applauded to be the only manufacturer to introduce such a system in that price-bracket.
Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems (TPMS) gained popularity in the aftermath of the Ford Explorer-Firestone fiasco, mentioned earlier. These later branched out into active and passive systems. A simple variation of the latter is what is being used in the M&M Scorpio. A slightly more advanced version of a passive system piggybacks on the existing ABS system in the vehicle. However, such systems do come with their own limitations and are are effective when the pressure loss is >25%. Given today's driving conditions such a huge percentage may actually make the vehicle unpractical to drive.
For eg. 30Psi is the average tire pressure for cars in the Indian market in the A, B and C segments. Taking the 25% reduction number, the ABS reliant passive TPMS will become functional when the pressure drops to around 22Psi. Driving a vehicle with such a huge variation in tire pressure could either destroy the tire, endangering the lives of the vehicle occupants.
To get over such limitations, we shall take a look at the solutions being offered by the Luxury car manufacturers and the effectiveness of such systems from the Indian as well as International perspective.
In our next discussion we shall dissect the available options and examine another crucial development that promises to change the way we drive.
