Man, German, don’t kick tires; use the air pressure gauge at the gas station when in doubt. Our car isn’t that antique that it does not have per-tire pressure alarms.
It makes sense to me that back when this was a thing women would do that less often, because women do wear shoes not suitable for kicking something more often than men do.
I’d always thought it was meant to check wheel bearings, which used to be something you had to lubricate regularly lest they wear out too quickly. The wheel would moved when “kicked,” giving you a good idea of the overall condition of the car. If you let the wheel bearings wear out, then how negligent were you in the maintenance of the rest of the vehicle?
Of course, a “kick” with the toe of your foot wouldn’t be enough. You’d have to put your weight into it.
And, these days, wheel bearings are lubed for life, and generally outlast the useful life of the vehicle.
If women don’t (as may well be the case), might it have something to do with how they view their shoes?
That’s what I thought I remembered. Thanks for the confirmation.
Similar to the phrase “smoke test” for when you first energize a circuit.
I would have thought that the gender gap here would be due to societal expectations of “manliness”. The Man is expected to know cars, and so The Man must do car things to prove his Manliness. For women, there’s no such expectation to live up to.
I still do it if I suspect a tire needs air even though it’s never provided any useful information. Unlike thumping watermelons (which also provides me with no useful info) I’d never do it to a car I was thinking about purchasing. As for the gender thing, women in general are a lot more careful about keeping their shoes looking nice.
Brit here, and while the phrase “kick the tyres” doesn’t come up often, I think it’s often in the context of a timewaster. Someone who is going through the motions and probably won’t buy the car (and even if they will, the tyre kick was nothing to do with it).
I’ve bought several used cars, and it would never occur to me to check the tyre pressure. What difference would it even make if the tyres were soft? It’s the easiest “repair” after cleaning the windscreen using the wipers.
Or, if it’s a slow puncture, the seller probably would be aware of it. Of all the ways for a seller to be dishonest and have a sale under bad terms (and bad reviews), are they really going to do that for the cost of one tyre?
Tyre tread and suspension are worth checking though. They can be worse than the seller is aware.
I was informed of the information in my post above about the history of kicking tires by the owner of tire retailer whose family had been in the business for over 100 years. The guy could have made it up for all I know, but there were pictures on the wall of wagons shown with Goodyear tires from the early 20th century. The phrase “kick the tires” can’t be older than about 150 years because most tires were made of iron and leather up until then, and some solid rubber versions for a little while until inflatable tires were invented. I doubt anyone kicked an iron tire or the phrase existed before then.
I just remembered that I mostly did the kicking tires thing to make sure that no bolts were loose. If two or more bolts were loose, the wheel would move a bit. I did this, as told in the anecdote above, after I had experienced some wonkiness while driving and had the suspicion that the wheels could have been not fixed tight enough.
A cite that it was actually based on kicking early tires to check their condition from Wiktionary.
Don’t know how reliable that is, but again the history of tires supports this idea, and the modern generic concept of checking out a vehicle or other construction derived from actual kicking of tires for a purpose.
However, it’s possible tire kicking started when people first encountered pneumatic tires on a vehicle larger than a bicycle and just wanted to see what a circular rubber balloon would feel like if they kicked one. Knowing men, I’m sure plenty of them justified the kick by claiming they could detect a problem in the tire that way even if they couldn’t. Maybe it was just a trick by salesmen to alleviate customer’s doubts about the new inflatable tire technology.
Many modern passenger vehicles have low-profile tires so the sidewalls are so narrow you’d have to be some kind of kicking savant to connect without bashing your toe on the wheel.
For a pointless gesture, too much risk of injury.
It’s genetic, on the Y chromosome. Here’s how I know that. When my grandson was one year and a couple days old we took him to the pre-Christmas fare in downtown Montreal where they sell all the Christmas schlock. He had been walking for about a month. They had a car on display that they raffled off. We all walked in to the exhibition hall. He walked right up to car on display and kicked a tire.
I kick the tires. At the same time I am looking at the tires for tread depth and weather checking. Also the date code on the tires.
It exists in South Africa, but I don’t do it myself, not being much of a car person. I associate the behaviour with (male) gearheads and off-roaders, not male drivers in general.
I think if you wanted general prevalence, that should be a different poll question.
One woman and seventeen men out of a total of 97 kick tires, and so did Hari_Seldon’s grandson, who did not participate in the poll. No, I don’t need general prevalence, I am happy with the results as they are. This was not supposed to be rocket science, rockets don’t have tires.
As for women kicking tires, they are in general more likely to be wearing less robust and/or more expensive shoes than men, giving the prospect of kicking things added considerations.
Since you mentioned off-roaders, my understanding is that you want to let some air out of the tires if you’re going to drive in sand or mud, and then re-inflate them before getting pack on the pavement. I wonder if kicking the tires serves some legitimate purpose there, like gauging when you’ve lowered the pressure enough.
I have kicked a car’s tires on occasion. At no point did I think it was accomplishing anything of value.
As a Model T owner I can throw one more theory into the mix.
Back in the days of horse-drawn wagons and wheels with wooden spokes, if you were buying a used wagon you would kick the rim to see if any of the spokes were loose or broken. Early cars like the Model T also often had wooden spoke wheels (mine does), so you’d kick the tires for the same reason, to see if any of the spokes were loose or damaged. If you give it more of a shove than a kick, you might also be able to tell if something was wrong with the car’s suspension, wheel bearings, etc.
I personally have never kicked my Model T (it’s 97 years old, I would prefer not to abuse it in any way), nor have I kicked any other car’s tire. But this is something that I have heard. No idea if there is any truth or validity to it.