Are my tyres illegal ?

Emp_Fab

The tread depth is over 2mm for 75% of the tyre width I'm pretty sure, but something is obviously up with the tracking....  and is that the beginnings of the cord showing on the bottom pic ?

guitarfishbay

I'd rather get new tyres and tracking done than crash.

Emp_Fab

I don't have any say in it.  It's a company car.  I take it to Kwik Fit and they ring up the leasing company who say "No, there's still another twenty miles left in those, tell him to go away and come back in twenty miles".  What I'm trying to do is to save myself a wasted visit to Kwik Fit if they're not illegal.

gubble

They look illegal to me - certainly advisory at the very least.

Simple way to solve the kwik fit problem - drive there, stop 100 yards away and bang a nail into the tyre.

ICBM

I would say borderline to illegal. More to the point, borderline dangerous.

Either the tracking is off or you make a habit of going round corners on two wheels… judging by the cracking in the second pic I would guess the latter - that's a sign of severe sideways loading rather than uneven wear. Is that the passenger-side front by any chance? ie the one that gets the most stress on roundabouts.

BloodEagle

Yes, they need changing 

Octafish

They look well dodgy to me, especially the wear in the lower pic with tear marks on the rubber, I wouldn't want to go far on them. I'd be surprised if Kwik Fit umm and ahh on it to be honest, particularly if they can flog some new tyres. Hard to tell from photos, but the wear across the width of the tyre looks very uneven. Camber might be out?

Haych

I thought it was 3mm across a continual 75% of the tread width?  Or has it changed?

My ex GF was in the same situation - she worked for a less than great company and couldn't have anything done to the car without the proper authorisation.  Very frustrating when it's potentially your life that could depend on the state of your tyres etc.

I'd say they need changing, that top picture looks borderline illegal. I'm sure if you took them to Kwik Fit they'll agree.  Surely they are the experts and if they have the car in front of them and can see that they need changing (and the lease company can't) what they say should take priority, no?  Or am I being too simplistic.

I'm a bloody minded sod though and would simply refuse to drive the car on health and safety grounds.

slacker

The leasing company are probably using mileage to determine if the tyres are worn. However they are worn. I would go back to Kwik Fit and ask them to contact the leasing company again and provide their answer in writing so you can give it to the police at the scene of the forthcoming accident. 

fretmeister

slacker said:

The leasing company are probably using mileage to determine if the tyres are worn. However they are worn. I would go back to Kwik Fit and ask them to contact the leasing company again and provide their answer in writing so you can give it to the police at the scene of the forthcoming accident. 

Won't help.

Drivers fault for still driving it.

IIRC (and I might be out of date) but the max possible fine is £2500 PER TYRE and 3 points PER TYRE.

Not worth the risk.

Haych

Bugger, I was wrong - copied from the Kwik Fit site:

The legal limit for minimum depth of the tread on your tyres is 1.6 millimetres, across the central ¾ of the tread around the complete circumference of the tyre. For safety reasons it is recommended that you replace your tyres before the legal limit is reached.

So not 3mm as I thought.  

Roland

The leasing company cannot afford the reputational damage of forcing you into an illegal or unsafe situation. They will have expectations of tyre life, and will authorise automatically if those are met, but ask for additional information if the mileage is less. If Kwikfit say it's unsafe then the most that the leasing company can afford to do is ask you to take it elsewhere for a second opinion.

slacker

fretmeister said:

slacker said:

The leasing company are probably using mileage to determine if the tyres are worn. However they are worn. I would go back to Kwik Fit and ask them to contact the leasing company again and provide their answer in writing so you can give it to the police at the scene of the forthcoming accident. 

Won't help.

Drivers fault for still driving it.

IIRC (and I might be out of date) but the max possible fine is £2500 PER TYRE and 3 points PER TYRE.

Not worth the risk.

The idea is to get the leasing company to pay for the tyres. They wont put anything in writing. 

ESBlonde

I'd get the new tyres, confirm the tracking and if it's alright make a mental note to lift your foot before the corners. Tyre rotation would help even out the wear pattern but not getting uneven wear in the first place would be favourite.

HAL9000

They're not worn officer - they're racing slicks. You can thank me later.

Handsome_Chris

I am so glad that this thread was not titled "Barely Legal".

Emp_Fab

ICBM said:

I would say borderline to illegal. More to the point, borderline dangerous.

Either the tracking is off or you make a habit of going round corners on two wheels… judging by the cracking in the second pic I would guess the latter - that's a sign of severe sideways loading rather than uneven wear. Is that the passenger-side front by any chance? ie the one that gets the most stress on roundabouts.

It is the nearside front.  As for the cracking - I'm pretty sure that's the rubber starting to come away from the underlying cord rather than stress cracks - the pattern is too even.  Either way, I'm not aware of driving like a maniac around roundabouts.  The car is RWD if it makes any difference - a rarity these days.

I'll get it looked at in the morning.

mike_l

Yes.

They need changing now.
 Go get them done.

ICBM

Emp_Fab said:

It is the nearside front.  As for the cracking - I'm pretty sure that's the rubber starting to come away from the underlying cord rather than stress cracks - the pattern is too even.  Either way, I'm not aware of driving like a maniac around roundabouts.  The car is RWD if it makes any difference - a rarity these days.

Is it a BMW? If so, you may well not be aware - you've got to manually disengage DLAT mode, which you can be forgiven for since it's not a standard thing to do and it's quite hard to find. It's the unmarked button alongside the one that enables the indicators and mirrors.























I think you may be right about the cord, but whether or not it is that, if that was my car I probably wouldn't want to drive any further than to Kwik Fit with it, even if I had to pay for it. The tyre looks quite weakened and I wouldn't want it coming apart there.

WezV

If they refuse email your concerns to whoever has health & safety responsibility at your place of work.  Then refuse to drive till it's sorted, leave the vehicle at Kwik Fit if you have to.

it may piss off work (it shouldn't) but your legal obligation goes beyond that.

Corvus

Looks like kerb or pothole shredding more than anything coming away, but it also looks doubtful the tread is legal depth at 3/4 of the width. Probably OK in the dry in normal driving but a wet day after rain when all the shite rises up to the top is something else, I'd be wanting those swapped quick.