Tyre laws

Honest John Back Room » The Back Room Archive
View Threaded
Mon 11 Mar 2002 17:37
Tyre laws - Alwyn
Seeing a slight wear pattern on my front tyres, I looked for verification of the tyre laws and found this site with lots of useful info.

www.tyresave.co.uk/tyreinfo.html

And lo, they are just 8 miles from me though I have never been there.

I checked the tread depth with a tyre depth gauge and found them quite legal. 1.6 mm is not a lot of tread is it?

I had made the mistake of thinking the law said a minimum of 1.6mm across at least 3/4 of the tread but it is the central 3/4 which matters. Logical, I suppose.

On looking at the Dunlop site, I see there are over 2000 offences which a motorist can commit. I presume they exclude burglary, robbery, GBH etc. (for now)

Oh, and I also found the head of a nail in my right front. Great!
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Mon 11 Mar 2002 17:54
Re: Tyre laws - mike harvey
Yes, and the edges outide the central 3/4 can be totally devoid of tread. Not logical!
Mike
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Mon 11 Mar 2002 19:13
Re: Tyre laws - gwyn parry
This was bizzare change in the act about 10 years ago, presumably to bring us into line with EU.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Mon 11 Mar 2002 20:10
Re: Tyre laws - Steve G
Where do all those nails come from ?
My last car had about 8 nails spread across all the tyres.Only one tyre had a slow puncture though.
Useful info/website Alwyn, thanks.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Mon 11 Mar 2002 20:56
Re: Tyre laws - Pete@theGarage
Look out for why the wear (if uneven) is occurring, though!
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 12 Mar 2002 11:51
Re: Tyre laws - Alwyn
Cheers,

Yes, I bought these tyres from a garage other than my usual one because they would always mess up the tracking. They have lasted much longer this time, but are now showing signs of tread wear on the outer edges.

Tyre fitters say, "Its' the power steering, imagine all that force on the tyres when doing 70 mph around a curve"

When I ask how the tyre knows if it is the power steering or a gorilla holding the steering wheel, they seem stumped.

Is outer edge wear inevitable? I have yet to have a set of front tyres on any car last as long as the rear. My dear wife's Mondeo is now showing similar wear and the tyress are only 6 months old. Tish!
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 12 Mar 2002 12:23
Re: Tyre laws - CM
Your front and rears are going to age at different rates depending if the car is front or rear wheel drive. so the answer is no to having a set of front and rears age at the same rate.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 12 Mar 2002 12:35
Re: Tyre laws - Ian L
I have always seen outer edge wear patterns on front wheels of front wheel drive cars compared to uniform wear on the rear wheels.

Compare this to my last car, a Subaru AWD driving on very rough tarmac (by UK standards) and after 3 years of severe conditions use the wear pattern was uniform on all wheels right across the tyre....I had to get out a depth micrometer from work to detect any difference across the width of the tyre.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link

From choosing the right tyre to what to do when it goes wrong - we have the answers.

Tyre News And Advice