All,
When the tread is flush with the tread wear indicators, how much depth of tread is left?
IE are the TWI's 1mm, 1.6mm or 2mm? Are they even uniform amongst tyre manufacturers?
My Conti's are getting close to the TWI's but the treads still feel quite deep (3-3.5mm at a guess)
Thanks
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My Conti's are getting close to the TWI's
Time to actively think about replacing them. The 1.6mm TWI's are an absolute minimum.
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According to the Continental website, 1.6 to 2.0 mm.
tinyurl.com/yvpom7
Minimum legal thread depth of course is 1.6 mm.
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They?re supposed to be at 1.6mm (which is of course the legal minimum).
This (getting the change point right) has been (one of) the bains of my life during the years I had a company car, and the other day I took my daughter?s Ibiza (on a VAG maint contract) to have the tyres changed and despite the tread being flush with the TWI?s the fitter still managed to record a tread depth of 3mm. This of course resulted in VAG refusing to change the tyres! There then ensued a massive argument and the tyres got changed!!
If it?s your own car, and they?re getting close to the TWI?s, then you should get the tyres changed at your earliest convenience, especially as autumn approaches.
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I'm in a similar situation as you Bill, comany car on maint plan.
Don;t worry, they will be well gone by Autumn, these tyres have done 17500 miles old since April. They'll have done over 20k if they make it until end Sept.
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The markers have to take into consideration the different legal depths throughout the world and much nearer across the channel.
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There's plenty of advice, to private owners, to replace tyres when the tread depth drops below 3mm because of their poor wet grip.
Am I alone in being frightened by the large number of drivers using lease cars, who are forced by their leasing company to drive with well under 2mm tread depth before they can be changed?
It seems to me that the commercial interests of leasing companies are being allowed to take precedence over road safety!
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The leasing companies work on the basis that there's no point in changing the tyres before they have to because you might write the car off the nxt day. It sounds harsh, but with thousands of cars on their hands, then that must happen.
What used to work was to get them done on a Sunday, when the lease company maint controllers were not available to authorise the replacements. However the bigger ones now work on Sunday and the other cracked down by only allowing tyre replacement in an emergency.
As big an issue as the wear, is the leasing companies insistance on only using certain brands. Ours always used Firestone, because of longer life, but they're very different to the tyres the car comes with. I got Peugeot to tell our fleet manager that in the event of a serious accident they might point to the tyres and say they weren't approved. Peugeot were at pains to point out that there was no problem with Firestone, just that they hadn't tested the car on those tyres. However that was enough for our fleet manager to wet himself and insist that the tyres were replaced like for like in future.
On daughter's Ibiza, it came with Dunlop SP Sports - even though only 2 were replaced (and put on front, contrary to all advice) VAG insisted on Continental EcoContacts. That's a *very* different tyre.
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