Car tyres.

[gavroche]

I have bought my car brand new in March 2015 and just checked my tyres for wear and tear. The car has now done 28000 miles and all four tyres are still original. The tread at the front is 2.4mm and 4.7 at the back. Considering that the legal limit is 1.6, they are still good for a few more months. The tyres are Michelin Energy and I am very happy with them. How good are yours?
Of course, tyre wear is down to the way you drive and I pride myself in being a very sensible, careful driver. I always nurse the car so as to minimise wear and tear of all components and low fuel consumption.
When I see some people thrashing their car just to get there a few seconds earlier or just to show off, I cringe and think of how much they must spend on repairs, fuel etc.... but then again, when I was a lot younger, I was like that too. Getting older certainly makes you wiser.

 

[PeteXXX]

Pop into a tyre place and ask them to swap front to rear. You'll get a lot more miles out of the set that way.
I did that on my car. Only cost s tenner

 

[Drago]

Your front tyres may be legal, but they're already scrap. Because water is incompressible the tread ceases to function below 3mm as the volume is reduced too much to act as intended. Every major tyre manufacturer bar 1 recommend tyres are replaced at 3mm minimum, as do RoSPA. 3mm is also the national guideline for replacing boots on price vehicles.

All the tyres on my car were new this spring and haven't done 1000 miles since. I always keep the best on the rear as understeer is a PITA but oversteer is deadly

 

[midlife]

I was doing well to get a year out of my impreza tyres

 

[Drago]

Daughter #1 has a Porker Cayenne. Not even a year old and its coming up due for new tyres. That's 450bhp and a 29 year old for you. She priced up some new ones and a single boot costs to the pound what four new Michelin's cost for my Focus Pensionbook GTi.

 

[Levo-Lon]

Pop into a tyre place and ask them to swap front to rear. You'll get a lot more miles out of the set that way.
I did that on my car. Only cost s tenner

Do Not Do This!.
Its a recipe for disaster.

The garage who did that @PeteXXX are putting you at risk and others

 

[PeteXXX]

Do Not Do This!.
Its a recipe for disaster.

The garage who did that @PeteXXX are putting you at risk and others

Why?

 

[Levo-Lon]

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DhY_ZH0TMVo

 

[Smokin Joe]

Pop into a tyre place and ask them to swap front to rear. You'll get a lot more miles out of the set that way.
I did that on my car. Only cost s tenner

No you don't. All you did was waste a tenner.

 

[PeteXXX]

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DhY_ZH0TMVo

Yeah but, I'm not advocating part worn for a tenner tyres from a scrappies. These are my own (well legal) tyres. Never been kerbed or accident damaged.
And Quentin Wilson is a nobber but that's a different topic

 

[graham bowers]

Changed all 4 of my Michelin Energy tyres recently at just less wear levels than yours. The 3mm wear level recommendation is well documented. http://www.rospa.com/rospaweb/docs/advice-services/road-safety/vehicles/tyre-tread-depth.pdf I've no axe to grind, just ask that you read the evidence. I have worked with MIRA and trust the data.

 

[lazybloke]

In 29 years of driving I've yet to unexpectedly lose grip or aquaplane, and I've always ignored the 3mm recommendation. Seems nothing more than a selling tactic to me. Even in my GTi days, I always got as many miles out of my tyres as possible.
Maybe I've just been lucky, or is it that I drive according to the conditions?

Changed all 4 of my Michelin Energy tyres recently at just less wear levels than yours. The 3mm wear level recommendation is well documented. http://www.rospa.com/rospaweb/docs/advice-services/road-safety/vehicles/tyre-tread-depth.pdf I've no axe to grind, just ask that you read the evidence. I have worked with MIRA and trust the data.

Cheers Graham, I'll look at that later - am I in for a wake up call?

 

[Drago]

Its not a selling tactic. Been proven time and again. Performance drops off a cliff on the graph at this point, on wet or dry roads.

Tread moves a fixed volume of water away from the road surface for a particular set speed. That volume of water you need to shift doesn't change, but as the volume of tyre tread reduces, so there is less volume of tread to shift the same volume if water. Water is incompressible so once the volume of tread reduces beyond the volume of water, then that water has nowhere to go and your tyre starts to ride on a cushion of water. Most of the time you won't even be aware this is happening, but it most assuredly is.

The mechanics behind the operation of tyre tread are quite simple. There is a vast reservoir of independent testing out there, including MIRA, TRL, NTSB, French MTE, German TuV, and dozens of others, and they all say the same. None of these organisations sell tyres or have any financial axe to grind

 

[graham bowers]

In 29 years of driving I've yet to unexpectedly lose grip or aquaplane, and I've always ignored the 3mm recommendation. Seems nothing more than a selling tactic to me. Even in my GTi days, I always got as many miles out of my tyres as possible.
Maybe I've just been lucky, or is it that I drive according to the conditions?


Cheers Graham, I'll look at that later - am I in for a wake up call?

The data may shock you.

As a paid up sceptic I reject much marketing hype but in this case its my belief the 3mm recommendation has technical justification. I trust the MIRA data. I have not done my own "testing" as I drive well within grip limits, something probably born of a motorcycling background. The circumstances I am likely to need maximum grip in the wet will be when the sh!t has hit the fan, and I then want all the grip I can get.

 

[BrynCP]

My original tyres lasted 10 years and 58 000 miles. Every year I had the tyre place check them, and they said they were fine. But this year I said goodbye to them.