At what tread depth do YOU replace your tyres?

godinman said:
I had a mildly terrifying incident joining the M6 yesterday. I must just have missed the rain but the road was pretty wet, so I was in lane 2 of the road that joins the M6 going around a bend behind a van doing 50-60 when I saw the van go through some pretty deep standing water. Big splash and then I'm going through and I lose pretty much all control and start drifting into lane 1, which has another car in it.

Luckily I didn't panic and brake or turn the steering wheel too much (still had a bit of a wiggle when I hit solid ground again) and got away with it.

My tyres are legal, and I guess it's not entirely usual to drive through deep water like that but I'll be checking them over today and seeing about replacing if they are getting close.

Got the adrenaline pumping somewhat! I'm on rainsport 2's, I guess maybe that made me a bit complacent or something. :o


Edit - The guys saying 'I drive sensibly so don't need lots of tread' should probably take note of this, I wasn't breaking the speed limit and would have been fine if it weren't for something I wasn't expecting and didn't have a lot of control over happening. Also a lesson to take it REALLY easy when the roads very wet.
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Indeed, certain tyres can outperform others by a long way, but ultimately none can defy physics, hit enough water at speed and you will aquaplane, rainsports do very well on aquaplaning tests, but all tyres rely on tread depth to disperse the water. Aside from the compound and tread pattern, I believe rainsports when new have a deeper than average tread.
 
MrKnifey said:
Pretty much any time you aquaplane your not in control of your car anyways?
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Not the point.. You aquaplane much more readily and at much lower speed if you've got 0.6 mm tread as the tyre physically can't evacuate as much water, the same tyre on the legal limit can potentially evacuate over 150% more water. A tyre with 4mm well, do the maths.. That's a lot, if you didn't guess.
 
mattyfez said:
At 0.6mm if you hit any kind of water at a decent speed you are no longer driving a car, you are a passenger in a hovercraft :/
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That depends entirely on a few things, but I've aquaplaned with new tyres in heavy conditions so I'm not sure where you start and end with this.

Although, I would have to say I've only been under the limit once on two fronts. I really didn't want to change them they gripped like hell in the dry. :D
 
Biohazard said:
That depends entirely on a few things, but I've aquaplaned with new tyres in heavy conditions so I'm not sure where you start and end with this.

Although, I would have to say I've only been under the limit once on two fronts. I really didn't want to change them they gripped like hell in the dry. :D
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As with anything it's relative..

According to pirelli.com ....road car tyre which displaces around 10 litres a second at regular road speeds.

Presumably that road tyre had ~6mm tread. If that same road tyre had 1mm tread, well I'm no physicist but... :eek:
 
Take a brand new Stanley blade, gouge out the wear indicators and you're good to go for another 1.6mm.
 
At 2mm. Saying that I replaced the last two just because I was fed up of looking at two different tyres on one axle. The one tyre had 5-6mm of tread left, but it was an old tyre that the MOT flagged up a few weeks earlier.

In the case of my step-dad last year, replace them when you have a blow-out on holiday and don't bother to check to see if the canvas was exposed on the inside of the tyre before leaving for said holiday. To be fair the rest of the tyre still looked like it had 12 months of use left in it.
 
To answer to OP, I would say about 2mm as a general guess, typically I find they get too twitchy in the wet for my liking before they hit the legal limit... I like to know I'm able to steer if I need too!

That said its been a while since I've replaced tyres due to wear, last 3 times its been puncture, sidewall bulge and before that I replaced a good pair (tread wise) that were already on a car I bought because they made me scared wen I went round corners in anything other than nice dry conditions.
 
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mattyfez said:
What tyres were they and what was the tread depth when you replaced them (dare I ask)?
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They were about 2mm, initially I 'think' the car came with Michelin, although this was 7 years ago so I am not 100%, some big name anyway, then I put Hankooks on after that. Just seemed to last and last. Even wear, hadn't hit any kerbs.
 
Does anyone swap their wheels round to even out the wear? I'm not a huge fan of the Bridgestone tyres on my R32 in the wet and would love to change them to CSC5's but at the same time I'm not one to waste perfectly good rubber.

The rears have a good amount of rubber left on them while the fronts are a bit more worn but still have rubber above the wear bars. I've been thinking of swapping them around so they wear a bit more evenly which will eventually give me the opportunity to replace all 4 at the same time (OCD FTW!)
 
cokecan said:
Does anyone swap their wheels round to even out the wear? I'm not a huge fan of the Bridgestone tyres on my R32 in the wet and would love to change them to CSC5's but at the same time I'm not one to waste perfectly good rubber.

The rears have a good amount of rubber left on them while the fronts are a bit more worn but still have rubber above the wear bars. I've been thinking of swapping them around so they wear a bit more evenly which will eventually give me the opportunity to replace all 4 at the same time (OCD FTW!)
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I think its a matter of economics, personally I change two at a time as the cost is easier to swallow.
I have an AWD but its very bias to the front, so I expect to get through 3 sets of fronts to every one set of rears.

You can swap back/forward, but then eventually you have to buy 4 new tyres at the same time, which is quite a dent in the wallet.
 
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mattyfez said:
You can swap back/forward, but then eventually you have to buy 4 new tyres at the same time, which is quite a dent in the wallet.
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Yes, but there is longer between replacements. You also don't end up in a situation where you have fresh fronts and really old rears. My experience has been that tyres deteriorate with age quite a bit even if the tread depth isn't worn down. Box fresh tyres are so much nicer to have, nothing beats having 4 sticker tyres on.
 
mattyfez said:
I think its a matter of economics, personally I change two at a time as the cost is easier to swallow.
I have an AWD but its very bias to the front, so I expect to get through 3 sets of fronts to every one set of rears.

You can swap back/forward, but then eventually you have to buy 4 new tyres at the same time, which is quite a dent in the wallet.
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The dent in the wallet is the same over time though. Just put the money you'd have spent on 2 tyres away when you rotate then you've already got it ready for when you need to by 4.

It isnt cheaper to buy 2 tyres at once.
 
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