Part Worn Tyre Risks Revealed by Tyresafe

The specialists at Birmingham City Council studied the risks associated to part worn tires and found that nine out of ten failed to meet the minimum legal standards, Tyresafe announced today. This followed a recent study conducted by Tyresafe that revealed that more than one in ten drivers is more likely to buy part worn tires compared to 12 months ago.

“The results from the Birmingham investigation are extremely worrying and confirm our worst fears about part worn tyres,” Stuart Jackson, chairman at TyreSafe, said in a release.

“Although guidelines do exist about the condition of tyres being sold as part worns, they are clearly not being adhered to by all traders,” he added. “The types of faults found are extremely dangerous and if fitted to a vehicle, could have caused serious accident and injury. This serves as a warning to drivers and we would re-iterate our position that we would always recommend fitting brand new tyres.”

As expected, this is due to the troubled economy. During testing, the team bought and tested more than 190 part worn tyres with 25 percent found to have some form of structural defect.

Among the failures were tyres which had nails embedded, illegal tread depth, exposed cords, inadequate markings and one tyre which was 17 years old.

Moreover, Tyresafe examined six of the tyres bought by Birmingham Trading Standards by x-ray to identify any further internal damage. “All of the tires showed signs of impact damage resulting in unstable stress points or fatigue in components which would make them much more likely to suffer a blowout. These highly dangerous defects would not be visible under normal inspections that part worn tyres must undergo before going on sale,” Tyresafe concluded.