TyreSafe warns on part worn tyres

More than four million drivers in the UK are buying tyres that have been previously used on another vehicle, and one in six motorists has bought part-worn tyres at some point in their driving life, tyre safety organisation TyreSafe has reported.

TyreSafe also claims that buying part-worn tyres isn’t necessarily cheaper. A typical part-worn tyre will have about 3mm of tread. Considering the legal minimum is 1.6mm, that part-worn tyre will only have about 1.4mm of usable tread, meaning 4,000 miles or so of motoring.

A new tyre usually has 8mm of tread – that’s 6.4mm of legal tread, or 18,000 miles of driving.

With all that in mind, TyreSafe estimates that part-worn tyres could cost about £6.33 per millimetre of usable tread compared with just £5.32 per millimetre for a new set of tyres.