Over 50 per cent of tyres changed in the UK are illegal

English based Tyres and Accessories publication reports that Micheldever Tyres Service’s latest quarterly tread depth analysis shows that in the period from March 2012 to March 2013 between 50 and 60 per cent of tyres taken off in depots were already below the 1.6 millimetre legal limit. 

A further 40 per cent were on or just above it and only around three per cent were above 2 millimetres. Flicking back to when the research began in June 2008 it is clear to see that that the situation has deteriorated markedly over the last four or five years. Back then only around 15 per cent of tyres brought into depots were already illegal. Now it is more than triple that.

Last year tyre retail volumes fell between two and three per cent, if you take a consensus of market views. This followed several years of decline following the outbreak of financial pandemonium that came to the fore in 2008 meaning annual tyre volumes in mature markets such as Europe in general and the UK in particular have been slowly deviating from their long term development trends and as a result fewer tyres are being sold each year.

The effect this has had on tyre retailers has been magnified by the widely reported increase in part worn tyre sales, an issue that is especially influential in the UK. These tyres are generally sold by unidentifiable and unregulated operations, but the best estimates say part-worn sales are hovering around record levels. The latest government Used Tyre Working Group (UTWG) data, for example, estimates that UK part worn tyre 4.4 million units, approaching 15 per cent of the total replacement market.