Tyre tread, legal or illegal?

[Ken_R]

Legal, and referring to the Con & Use Regs, I'll explain why.

There are actually two explanations of how 'three-quarters of the breadth is to be adjudged'.

(g)either—

(i) the grooves of the tread pattern of the tyre do not have a depth of at least 1 mm throughout a continuous band measuring at least three-quarters of the breadth of the tread and round the entire outer circumference of the tyre; or

(ii) if the grooves of the original tread pattern of the tyre did not extend beyond three-quarters of the breadth of the tread, any groove which showed in the original tread pattern does not have a depth of at least 1 mm.

Clearly the tyre shown does not have original tread pattern that extended 'beyond three-quarters of the breadth.........'. The grooves, as opposed to the sipes, in the original tread pattern still have an acceptable depth and indeed, demonstrate a correctly inflated usage. Indeed, if one were to apply the definition as at (i), then they would not have been Legal even from new, but we know, and accept that not to be the case.

 

[Droverunner]

If that is the interpretation of grooves to allow a tyre like that to be legal then words fail me!! But I reckon grooves are all grooves across the tyre... sipes are just the hair like "grooves".

Note if using a 1mm min you are quoting the regs (re MOT standards) for a vehicle over 3500kg gross.

 

[m2287]

Mine were on 3mm, some “enthusiastic” driving in a car park soon had them under 2mm

 

[L John]

Many thanks, I'll also see my manager in a couple of weeks and show him. Maybe we will be able to push to get it changed.

Mine were on 3mm, some “enthusiastic” driving in a car park soon had them under 2mm

We have Trimble which monitors acceleration, cornering and braking. Anything approaching even normal driving sets off alerts.

 

[Droverunner]

>>>which monitors acceleration, cornering and braking.

I never let my daughters go for black box insurance for the times I would... err... ahem... "test" their cars!

 

[Xtractorfan]

You cannot judge a tyre from a photograph especially the width of the tyre, that tyre is legal and has tread over the main area of the tyre. NO MOT tester would ever turn it down.
But as said iI wouldn't drive it much further than the local tyre depot.

 

[Rappey69]

I think you all are missing the overall width of the tyre tread and just counting the flat part..
It also continues down each sidewall to the circular band, so factor this in and that bald patch is not even close to 25%
I have very aggressive mud tyres on my 4x4. I can put a staright line across the tread and would say not even 33% is rubber in places, just big gaps between the blocks, yet this is legal.

 

[LostKiwi]

My MOT tester just laughed when I asked if I had enough tread on the tyres on my ex-military ambulance...

 

[Yugguy]

I had a similar issue back when I had company cars. I ended up finding a remote car park and basically wheel spinning until I got all the bars down to the change interval.

 

[Droverunner]

Ken R quoted Construction and Use sect. 27. Further down that section it defines the meaning of the tread original width as... "breadth of tread” means the breadth of that part of the tyre which can contact the road under normal conditions of use".

There is a gauge MOT stations can use in case of query and it's use is demonstrated well here...

You can see the width of tread (i.e. the 100%) is marked as the width that contacts the road then the tyre is further marked up to allow the tester to be sure it has 75% of the original contact with road width remaining at 1.6mm or more.

 

[Rory]

The outer edges scrubbed off the fronts on my car - not quite as bad as in the picture, but not far off. Went through two MOTs at the dealer - first one was an advisory, not mentioned on second.

I took the chance to change them when I had the wheels refurbed, but there was still loads of tread on most of the tyre.