Are my tyres now illegal?

Iamzod · 2 Jun 2007 at 02:05

Hit a pothole the other week quite hard but the car felt fine afterwards so didn't worry too much about it.

However today i had it on the motorway & noticed the front end seemed to wander about a tad at higher speeds.

Had a look at the front tyres and they look fine, but i have noticed the very inner edge on the drivers side front is really worn, only the inner inch though right on the shoulder.

It's an Eagle F1 GSD3 and its taken all the little grooves off the very edge, but the rest of the tyre still has 4 - 6mm on it.

Legal or not?

Vibez · 2 Jun 2007 at 02:08

Sounds like you need to sort the cambers out, excess wearing on the outside of the tyres = positive camber

PardonTheWait · 2 Jun 2007 at 03:05

Sounds like it's maybe a bit on the wonk if the inside of one wheel is that worn compared to the rest. Depends how severe the difference is really.

megakid · 2 Jun 2007 at 07:23

Sounds like the pothole has knocked something out of alignment in your suspension setup.

The law says that a central band 75% of the width of the tyre must have a minimum of 1.6mm of tread. Outside of this, the tread need not be visible.

If it is still legal, I'd get your setup fully aligned and checked for damage before it wears the edge even more. should only cost you £20 for a 4 wheel laser alignment.

Meridian · 2 Jun 2007 at 07:56

Yes, your tyres may well be illegal. I had exactly this cause an MoT failure last month, with the inner shoulder of my GSD3s down to the braid, but the rest with 4-5mm of tread.

Mine was probably caused by the time I slid into a kerb last winter on some snow. Foolishly, I never got the the allignment checked at the time. Turns out that the tracking was way out (can't remember if it was bad toe-in or -out) and that was what was frying the tyres.

M

Iamzod · 2 Jun 2007 at 10:57

Thanks for the replies.

I've now added pics as it's daylight so you can see what i mean.

dalin80 · 2 Jun 2007 at 13:57

look just about legal, i suspect you knocked the tracking a bit giving it a light feel.

you can buy measuring gauges cheap enough that can tell you for sure, and most tyres (if not all now) have 2mm wear bars inside the tread in places to tell you when a tyre has pretty much had it.

wear like that could also be caused by low pressures.

L0rdMike · 2 Jun 2007 at 13:59

Looks like mine really, I would say its fine.

Dashik · 2 Jun 2007 at 15:35

With a potential fine of £1000 per tyre is it not worth going and getting it checked properly?

Oh and it 1.6mm across the central 3/4 of the breadth of the tyre and around the entire circumferance, no nicks, cuts or bulges!

Lashout_UK · 2 Jun 2007 at 15:42

Iamzod, how do you find those tyres? Good in all conditions? Looking at similar myself for my new alloys at the moment

Get it tracked by a local garage and you'll most likely find out the camber's gone awry. Went through a set of fronts in 500 miles with a similar problem but mine was on purpose

dalin80 · 2 Jun 2007 at 16:02

Lashout_UK said:
Get it tracked by a local garage and you'll most likely find out the camber's gone awry.

tracking and camber are 2 different things, normally tracking is the only thing affected by bumps etc as on 99.9% of cars there's nothing you can do to adjust camber.

Lashout_UK · 2 Jun 2007 at 16:30

there's nothing you can do to adjust camber.

Well, you can clip or stove the wheel into something, has the same effect

My tyre place always sticks a camber gauge on just to check everything's in order.

You are quite correct though, tracking is what tends to change in most instances

triggerthat · 2 Jun 2007 at 17:04

It looks fine.

The tracking on my car was out, which caused wear on the outter of the wheel. I'd recommend you just keep an eye on it.

Iamzod · 2 Jun 2007 at 18:42

Thanks for the replies, gonna go get the tracking checked anyway, but was just worried i'd need a new pair of front tyres.

This would have been a pain in the rear as i'm intending to put different wheels & tyres on it over the winter if all goes to plan.

Lashout_UK said:
Iamzod, how do you find those tyres? Good in all conditions? Looking at similar myself for my new alloys at the moment

Dont have much to compare them to really, its the only set of tyres i've ever had on the car but they seem decent enough.

It grips a hell of a lot better than the Volvo 940 & Rover 220D i run around in but they both have mixed cheapo tyres on ("Taganka Butterfly"
on the Volvo :confused:

)

It doesn't let go at the back all the time on wet roundabouts like my dads used to either unless it's intentional so they seem better then the Avon tyres he used to use, or maybe i'm just more careful.