Punctures?

You missed the bit about the tyres being 10 years old?

I'd also been sceptical until I did an internet search and found it was a real problem. It's better to be safe than sorry. Even if it was "only" the rims/lacquer how much would a garage charge to remove the tyres, rub down and relacquer the wheels, refit the original tyres (new valves?), and rebalance? My guess is that I wouldn't get much change from £100. A pair of new tyres will all that will cost only £80 more or so, and I'll /feel/ safe - which means a lot.

And I won't have to keep worrying about the tyres going flat every few days...

Isn't there a statutory limit on running old tyres? Ah,. Only for heavy vehicles.

But the fact is cracks are likele to show up and make the tyres fail the MOT

Hmm. My tyres are around £200 a pop.

Tim+ snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.youkay> wrote in news:711851013.771231306.801252.timdownieuk- snipped-for-privacy@news.individual.net:

Not at all . . .

Gosh, another party with a vested interest and talking specifically about heavily loaded HGV tyres.

And:

"There are currently no plans to ban car tyres older than 10 years from regular cars."

In short, older tyres not found to be in poor condition remain air tight and safe to use outside the specifics of heavily loaded HGV and PSV applications.

Where do you get the "heavily loaded HGV" from? The Highway Code states:

------------------------------------------------------- Tyre age. Tyres over 10 years old MUST NOT be used on the front axles of:

- goods vehicles with a maximum gross weight of more than 3.5 tonnes - passenger vehicles with more than 8 passenger seats

Additionally, they MUST NOT be used on the rear axles of passenger vehicles with 9 to 16 passenger seats, unless equipped with twin wheels.

-------------------------------------------------------

And "poor condition" means what? I've just had two tyres deflate for no apparent reason. I'd be very worried if they'd have been on the front wheels; it's a timely warning to replace them on the back.

Perhaps in future it would make sense to swap rear and front wheels every couple of years to even out the tyre wear. All four will then need replacing at the same time before they wear out through age, but at least I'll have had my money's worth on all four tyres.

Don't you then have the risk of having 4 dodgy tyres (low tyre tread) rather than just two.

On front wheel drive cars it's recommended that the best tryes should go on the rear so possibly the best solution if you have a car for any length of time is get two new tyres when the fronts wear out but put these on the back.

Jeff Layman snipped-for-privacy@invalid.invalid wrote in news:1029g91$15tpl$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

Thank you for confirming that the legislation does not apply to cars.

That will depend on whether the car has front or rear wheel drive, My present EV has rear wheel drive; before that I had FWD for about 40 years.

Not if you check the tread depths - which is done for an MOT anyway.

On a front wheel drive car the back tyres just don't wear. Mine have done 38000 miles and the tread depth is 5mm.

It is recommended that new tyres go onto the rear of a vehicle, regardless of whether it's front or rear wheel drive. The idea is that the rear wheels losing grip, on heavy braking, can mean the rear end passing the front!

On my Defender, bought from new, all tyres were sill legal at 50,000 miles

My recent tyre change was carried out at a main dealer rather than a tyre specialist. When I asked to have the new tyres on the rear & the rear tyres placed on the front they asked why. My reply was that it was some thing I read in a motoring magazine years ago & confirmed by 2 local tyre shops over the years. The logic being that they are not going to make themselves extra unpaid work if it wasn't the correct thing to do. The main dealer sevice manager said that for a front wheel drive car you need the maximum tread on the front for grip & steering.

It depends on the car and tyre. Some manufactures will fit tyres with a lower rolling resistance and/or a softer rubber compound in order to keep road noise at a lower level.

I had my back tyres replaced at around 37,000 miles - one just about legal but had been run under inflated due to a intermittent valve leak and had an non-typical wear pattern. Both tyres on the axle were replaced, as were the front tyres at the same time.

The fronts were originally replaced at 16,000 miles because I had a non-repairable puncture in one of them.

Unfortunately my spare is a different size to the wheels on the car. Car wheels are 17 inch rims and the spare provided by the manufacturers a "space saving" tyre with 16 inch rims :(

Try low profile Y rated tyres with 630NM of torque. 15000 miles from a set of rears is absolute luxury.

So you ignored the advice from 3 different sources in favour of the advice given by a service manager who's skill is in admin. :)

There is logic in that. In FWD the rear wheels are simply there to stop the car dragging its arse along the ground...

..I have vivid memories of Jan Lammers launching his Volvo Estate Toting Car into Stowe corner at Silverstone race track at around 110mph with the rear wheel cocked so high that the commentator said 'And his car learnt that from its usual Labrador passenger'

I know. I now own a jaguar XF...

Absolutely correct. With front-wheel drive the car is effectively pulled along. If the rear tyres lose grip, gentle acceleration is what is required to straighten it out. It doesn't really matter how much grip the rears have - if the fronts lose grip you really *are* in trouble! No traction to pull the car and no traction to steer... :-(

He didn't need Silverstone or high speed to do that with the rear wheels

- the hairpin bends at Wrynose/ Hardknott will see the rear wheel off the road in several places. It's very offputting when you're going round a bend and lose traction when the diff slips...

Michelin's Technical Manager advised to always put the new tyres on the rear. According to him, if the fronts begin to lose grip, the car will gently understeer and backing off the throttle will bring it back under control, while if the rear lose grip, the car is likely to snap into severe oversteer.

Tests by Auto Express confirmed the recommendation.