Are these Legal?

[83Excel]

Hi All,

Slightly off topic this one. My company Saab has Pirelli PZeros on it. Attached are 4 photos, the first 3 showing one of the front tyres and the 4th showing the rear.

There are 4 grooves round the tyres, splitting the tyre width into 5. As you may (or may not!) be able to see from the photos on the front tyres the 3 middle sections are now completely devoid of any tread pattern. In the Third Photo I have ringed 2 ridges in the grooves.

My understanding is that having worn down to these these ridges it indicates that the tyre is knackered and needs replacement, supported by the fact that there is no tread on the 3 middle sections. I however took the car in today and asked a well known tyre centre whether they needed changing (they sub contract from the lease company) they say, and I quote that there is "loads of wear left" I think based upon measuring the depth of the 4 grooves. Based on this the Lease company refuse to replace the tyres.

In other words I say they need replacing and am at risk of prosecution if I am right, the lease company say that they don't and they have to pay for them.

I would appreciate your guys opinion (especially as I beleive we have a traffic cop amongst our readers).

Cheers All

[Ozzy_UK]

correct colin those are wear markers, once you get to them your illegal... (give or take)

Oz.

[STELL]

DON'T KNOW OF HOW IT'S IN GREAT BRITTAN, BUT IN SWEDEN ANYTHING LESS THEN 3MM AT 70% OF THE TIRE IS CONIDERD DANGEROUS, UNLESS YOUR INTO RACING IN THE DRY.

[peter319]

I'm with Oz, once the wear markers reach the surface it's time for replacement. Been there a couple of times myself and it always looks like there is plenty of tread left but the grooves will no longer be deep enough to safely channel water so wet driving will be lots of fun

[83Excel]

Thanks chaps. Think I might have just upset one branch - took the car into another who took 1 look and said that they were marginal. Phoned up the lease company and I now have 2 new Bridgestones

Quite pleased considering I am driving down to just south of Geneva for my annual ski holiday with the lads early Feb!! Anyone fancy snow and ice on mountain roads with "marginal" tyres!!??

[Sooty]

Colin, All
There was an article in one of the classic car mags last month I believe, but this link tells it all. Scroll down to the penalties 3 points/tyre with a possible £2500 fine/tyre. I'd get a second opinion from a friendly mot station.
Cheers
Wayne
http://www.checkthatcar.com/uklegal.asp

[steven popay]

just a note on uneven tyre wear i know some MOT technicians and they say on some tyres they have to pass them but know that they are illegal, the MOT says only a certain percentage has to have tread on it but the police will prosecute on any bald areas. It seems the mot regulations dont sing from the same hymn sheet as the law

[bash]

The tyre regs for a car or light vehicle is that the tyre must have 1.6mm of tread in the central 3/4 of the tread area for the full circumference of the tyre.
see this site for good info on tyres.
http://www.carbibles.com/tire_bible.html
The tread bars are a good guide but dont rely on them, bobbies and insurance assesors have very accurate gauges to check this.
No prizes for guessing my job, and no, Im not in insurance.

Bash

[83Excel]

Thanks Bash, the issue that seems to have caused the debate was whether the correct place to measure the tread was
a) the 4 deep grooves (3mm)
or
b) the tread within the 3 raised sections (Nil)

In my mind the correct place to measure the depth must be the lowest point of the tread pattern, which is the raised section. This being the case the tread was Nil, however the wear indicators would seem to imply that the correct place to measure the tread depth is in the deep grooves. I simply can't get my head around how you can wear through all of the tread in these 3 sections but still be told that the tyre is legal, although presumably this will have been designed into the tread pattern by Pirelli.

I suppose my question really should have been - would you measure the tread depth on the raised sections (nil) or the depth of the main grooves (3mm).

On the plus side the new tyres are a different make so hopefully I will not see this situation again.

[AndyC]

It's those big grooves that really count, so they were legal.
The bars/ tread wear indicators are set to a level that means you should change the tyres, but that does not mean it's a legal requirement to do so. Regs vary from country to county, so they don't set bars for different countries, generally you just mold them to meet the most stringent requirement.

Andy

[bash]

The actual tread that matters is the 4 big groves. The others are what is known as 'sipes', and are not measurable for the road traffic act.

Bash