Part-Worn Tyres - What's your experinece?

Joshy

Joshy

Joshy

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This is probably my ***** side kicking in, so bare with me.

I'm trying to sort out a set of replacement 17" MKIV Supra wheels for the horrible Chav Dynamics on there at the moment. The plan was to bin the nearly worn RE050As I've got out out back and keep the GSD3s I've got up front with plenty of tread and stick them on the new tyres. Unfortunately I noticed yesterday that I've got a lovely bulge in sidewall one of the GSD3s, screwing that plan RIGHT up :mad:

Now I need to go through all of the expense of buying a set of wheels, refurbishing them AND buying 4 tyres to fit, instead of the 2 that I planned ASAP.

Looking on eBay for some potential "bargain" new tyres, I stumbled upon the many, MANY part worn and shamefully, I've found myself thinking "Hmm..."

Part worns with 5/6MM tread can be picked up for a fraction of the new cost. In the sizes that I need (I have some WIDE wheels to cover 8.5J front, 9.5J rear :cool:) this represents a massive saving on big brand tyres.

Now, It's all well and good saying "You don't know how they've been treated", but who here honestly changes their tyres as soon as they buy a second hand car? The same rules apply...

The decreased life span doesn't bother me at all but I can do all of the mounting and balancing myself.

My only sticking point so far is the old question - "If they are so good, why were they removed from the car in the first place?".

Practicality every non "car person" I know runs a set of part worns (Yes, I need to stop associating with pikies :o), and to my knowledge not one of them has ever suffered from a blow out or anything similar.

Does anyone have any experiences what so ever with part worns?

Should I just stop trying to justify being a massive ***** and buy a proper set of tyres?

Cheers

Josh
 
The only time I have had a blow out was whan I foolishly fitted a part worn to an old Astra a few years back.

A bad enough experience to never buy another.

Why people compromise with the one thing that keeps the car in contacty with the road, I'll never know.
 
Joshy said:
Now, It's all well and good saying "You don't know how they've been treated", but who here honestly changes their tyres as soon as they buy a second hand car? The same rules apply...
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Well they don't, because selling the tyres with a car is entirely normal, logical and sensible.

The doubt with part worn tyres is whether you can answer the question - why has someone removed these (supposedly perfectly good) tyres from their vehicle and tried to sell them on their own?

There aren't many circumstances where you can find a sensible a reason for this to have happened.
 
Joshy said:
Now, It's all well and good saying "You don't know how they've been treated", but who here honestly changes their tyres as soon as they buy a second hand car? The same rules apply...
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No, the same rules dont apply because, as you've correctly identified..

My only sticking point so far is the old question - "If they are so good, why were they removed from the car in the first place?".
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Exactly this. If you buy used wheels or a used car you know exactly why it has used tyres on it.

If you simply buy used tyres, you don't. Sure, people who like to cheap out on everything will pop along soon to argue they are totally fine but really, where are they from? Who are these people dumping perfectly good 5-6mm worth performance tyres?

Should I just stop trying to justify being a massive ***** and buy a proper set of tyres?
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Yes.
 
Practicality every non "car person" I know runs a set of part worns (Yes, I need to stop associating with pikies ), and to my knowledge not one of them has ever suffered from a blow out or anything similar.
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do they also drive supras in the way that you would be?

its not like you're going to be babying it to the shops and back once in a while i take it?
 
In the states I sold my part-worn all-season tyres to put on winter tyres. Sometimes there is good reason. I suppose it's less common over here though.

There will be a lot of cars that get written off, scrapped etc and they will have perfectly good part worn tyres.
 
taximike said:
There will be a lot of cars that get written off, scrapped etc and they will have perfectly good part worn tyres.
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There cant be that many cars being scrapped due to no accident damage which have expensive decent tyres on, and would YOU want tyres off a car thats been involved in a major accident? You've no idea what sort of lateral forces might have been exerted on them, impact damage, etc.
 
I suppose if I had a car with all the same tyres with about another 6 months in them and one of them had a defect. I'd consider buying a part worn to match them, so I could replace them all at the same time a bit later.

Though last time I had a damaged tyre I had a new one fitted to the front and also changed the other front tyre to match it.... which in turn would have lead to a perfectly good part-worn tyre going on sale ;)

I would never buy a part-worn for a sporty car.
 
Get some really worn, heavily scored and warped discs as well, I mean hell, there's probably a few hundred miles left in them, and hey, they still stop the car, right?
 
[TW]Fox;16921911 said:
There cant be that many cars being scrapped due to no accident damage which have expensive decent tyres on, and would YOU want tyres off a car thats been involved in a major accident? You've no idea what sort of lateral forces might have been exerted on them, impact damage, etc.
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we have a used tyre place round the corner from me.

i sometimes see an old truck turn up with old tyres which I imagine must have been sourced from the local breakers yards looking at the condition of them.

a quick once over with tyre paint and they're up for sale.

I would not go near them but, the place is always busy especially with female drivers and taxi's!
 
I've sold part worn tyres a few times with nothing at all wrong with them. The first set was sold when I changed the tyre type on our Audi from Pirelli to Goodyear, then sold those on again when we put continental winter tyres on. The front were sold on my current car when I changed the tyre make after the rears wore out from Goodyear to Continental. Nothing wrong with any of the tyres and they sold for a fraction of the cost new.
 
Lashout_UK said:
Just buy a set of Khumos or something similar, should "only" cost you 50-60 a corner.
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I'll probably go down a similar route as this to be brutally honest. I've heard some brilliant things about Federals from a friend that knows a thing or too about good tyres. Then again, he does technically work for a company sponsored by them :D

mattx2 said:
why not just buy the wheels + tyres i'd get something like this for the soarer would be :cool:
http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/showthread.php?t=221529
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Don't fit over the UK Spec brakes :mad:.

Bigger UK Spec/LS400 4 Pot brakes are the next upgrade I've got planned, but it seems that very few aftermarket wheels will actually sit over them comfortably. The UK Supra wheels are the right offset, are cheap, "light" and wide. They arguably look crap, but they do look like they "belong" on the Soarer, so won't draw unnecessarily attention to themselves, so I'm happy.

The wheels I'm looking to buy do have tyres, but they've been sitting for over a year, so best replaced TBH.
 
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I once had a part-worn tyre fitted to my old Citroen. Shortly after (we're talking minutes) it complete deflated while I was travelling on a dual carriageway. I had to limp it back to the tyre place, by which time the tyre was ruined. They fitted another part-worn FOC. It was probably a tyre that had been changed because it had a puncture, that they had bodged a repair on and then sent me on my merry way. That has sort of put me off "random" part-worn tyres for a long time.

If I could verify why a particular set of part-worn tyres are floating about the used market, I'd be tempted if it was a good saving.
 
Pointless.

5 or 6mm is only 2 or 3mm away from what I would consider the safe lower limit of 3mm.

If you really cannot afford it then put proper tyres on existing alloys and save for a new set/refurb.
 
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