Tyres to change or not?

Berger · 16 May 2014 at 10:53

Its coming into winter (June to August) and our car is due for service at 60'000km. My wife uses the car to commute 500km a week.

Now the front tyres are on about 3.5mm and the rears are on 4.5mm.

I had asked the dealer to price up a pair of tyres as I thought the fronts were a little lower than that.

Now most of the time it is dry, but when it's wet it is torrential with standing water. And now there is a frost every morning.

What would OcUK do, change the fronts, all the tyres or none at all.

I had planned to replace the tyres with the same again, factory fitted Hankook Ventus Prime 2's as they have proved to be a pretty good middle of the range tyre. I don't want something super sticky that will only do 20'000km and cost the earth.

Imy · 16 May 2014 at 11:33

I don't let my front tyres (FWD car) go all the way down to the legal minimum of 1.6mm before changing. I would give them until they are at least below 3mm though. The rears I let go down to legal minimum.

I use this to get accurate depth measurements:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002TLUZNA/

Firestar_3x · 16 May 2014 at 11:35

Do you get best value getting tyres from the dealer?

bazzabear · 16 May 2014 at 11:55

What's the car? Presumably FWD. Swap the wheels front to back, and you'll get another couple of months at least before all 4 are ready to change.

rodenal · 16 May 2014 at 11:58

I'd probably be inclined to swap them front to back then replace all 4 in a few months - so long as you aren't findingthem to behave horribly in the rain that is

Jono8 · 16 May 2014 at 12:16

bazzabear said:
What's the car? Presumably FWD. Swap the wheels front to back, and you'll get another couple of months at least before all 4 are ready to change.

rodenal said:
I'd probably be inclined to swap them front to back then replace all 4 in a few months - so long as you aren't findingthem to behave horribly in the rain that is

I vote do this.

It is good to be safe with tyres but replacing them at that tread level just seems a bit wasteful to be honest ( especially the rears if they are still at 4.5mm!)

if you swap them as pointed out above you could probably get another few months out of all of them and then replace them all when they are all 2.5mm - 3mm

Berger · 16 May 2014 at 12:33

Firestar_3x said:
Do you get best value getting tyres from the dealer?

They quoted me a reasonable price and it's easier to have them changed when it's service time too.

Measured the tread depth with a set of callipers.

Yes it's FWD and only 140bhp but driven by a woman so can be slightly erratic....

Imy · 16 May 2014 at 12:53

It's not like it takes very long to get tyres changed.

Berger · 16 May 2014 at 12:57

Imy said:
It's not like it takes very long to get tyres changed.

That's true if they do it straight away and it is convenient for you to take the car at any time.

Mobile fitting for private vehicles doesn't exist here yet as that's what we did in the UK.

lordrobs · 17 May 2014 at 10:45

Imy said:
It's not like it takes very long to get tyres changed.

You have to put a value on your time though. I can't get tyres done on a work day. I don't have a chance to phone around for quotes and the place that I know is cheapest locally, well, last time I went there on a Saturday I was there for nearly 3 hours.

If a dealer offered me a semi-decent quote I'd go with it. As it stands I just use Blackcircles and get them fitted at my closest garage where I know I can at least go off for breakfast while they do it.

In your situation I'd still try to get a bit more out of those tyres with a front to back swap.