These guys needed tyre advice - Bobbin Threadbare

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-23320526

The Bestival coach that crashed last year had a 19.5 year old tyre on one of the wheels, which failed, causing the crash. How on Earth do you get away with using tyres that old?!!!

These guys needed tyre advice - hillman

The report gives a clear reason - the tread was still quite good. I have been driving for over 50 years now and didn't know that the year of manufacture of a tyre is in dot code on the wall. So, if you aren't completely clued up it's a mistake waiting to occur.

When I bought a Vauxhall Victor in 1964 the first thing that I did was to change the tyres from the standard cross-ply to the new fangled radial. I bought Michelin X as recommended by my more experienced friends and those were on the car when I exported it to Zambia in 1965. Those tyres were very hard wearing but had the problem that at end-of-life they became 'fragile'. I have a photograph of one of the tyres that disintegrated on a gravel road in Zululand whilst we were on holiday. It did its thing in sight of a tar surface road. The tyre still had plenty of tread and the other four served me several months more. I was fortunate to be able to buy another in Durban.

These guys needed tyre advice - Hamsafar

Quite possibly due to the market in part worn tyres where spares taken from scrapped old vehicles are sold as 'like new' and have lots of tread left, so despite being say 13 years old are put into service length of a new one.

I have not much against part worn tyres, but there should be an age limit of say 6 years old when put into service.

These guys needed tyre advice - happy polo

The report gives a clear reason - the tread was still quite good. I have been driving for over 50 years now and didn't know that the year of manufacture of a tyre is in dot code on the wall. So, if you aren't completely clued up it's a mistake waiting to occur.

That may be a half-reasonable explanation for a private motorist, but this was a PCV being operated by a (supposedly) professional outfit. One might expect a coach fleet to be subject to a structured maintenance regime, and for that to involve tyres being obtained from a reputable supplier and to be of suitable quality. Many operators have contracts with tyre suppliers who come in and take care of that side of things, however it seems that was not the case here. I would be reluctant to travel with any coach firm who use any old rubber they can get cheap. A quick gander at the 'Fleet' section of their wesbite shows some of their fleet to be rather aged, one would hope they have inspected their tyres.

Edited by happy polo on 22/07/2013 at 23:59

These guys needed tyre advice - Sofa Spud

Perhaps there should be additional legislation regarding just the FRONT tyres on large vehicles - lorries, buses and coaches, to the effect that no tyre on the front steering axle of such vehicles may be more than, say, 2 years old, whatever their condition. On rigid 8-wheelers or other vehicles with more than one steering axle, tyres older than 2 years could still be permissible on the second steering axle.

Most large vehicles with a single rear axle have twin wheels on it, while single rear wheels are normally only fiited if there are two or three adjacent axles, so the risk of loss of control in the event of a rear blow-out is less severe.

Edited by Sofa Spud on 23/07/2013 at 12:02

These guys needed tyre advice - Collos25

Most tyres on buses and trucks are leased , old tyres can be re cut a few times before they are scrapped so its possible to have a very old tyre and the tread is like new.Plane tyres are even worse its was not unusual to see a 30 year old tyre on a modern plane.

These guys needed tyre advice - rebel

If tyre age is a real safety issue then surely all tyres should be clearly date stamped.

I think most tyres are presently dot coded, which seems to be a secretive way of dating which relitively few people are aware of?

These guys needed tyre advice - Smileyman

the age stamp on car tyres is not coded .. it's fairly easy to read and understand ... when I bought my winter tyres in 2010 they showed xx09 in the date field - indicating week xx in year 09 (cannot remember the week in question)