A scuffed rim is the half of the damage you can see. The other half is on the inside of the sidewall, where the kerb pinched the casing between rubber and metal, and where nothing shows on the outside until the tyre starts to bulge.
This matters more here than in most places, because the cars are running low profile tyres on large wheels and there is very little sidewall to absorb anything. Squeezing into a bay in Cornwall Gardens, misjudging a turn on the narrow streets around Phillimore, or catching a granite kerb on Earl's Court Road can all do it. So when someone rings about a broken tyre, our job is to give a verdict rather than a sales pitch. Cords showing, a bulge or a split into the casing means the tyre is done, and we will say so plainly. A cosmetic graze across the lettering means you have lost nothing but the look of it, and we will say that too, even though it is the answer that earns us less.
Big alloys and low-profile tyres look good and break easily. We check both when we come out to Cornwall Gardens or wherever the car is standing: the tyre for cuts, splits and bulges, and the alloy for damage, before anything goes back on. Boxed in on a Holland Park terrace or wide open in Cornwall Gardens, say which on the phone. Tight in Phillimore, easy in Gloucester Road: neither stops the job.
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Kerb damage is the everyday hazard here, not nails. Tight residents' bays, granite kerbs and big wheels on short sidewalls make a poor combination, and the streets between the High Street and Earl's Court punish a misjudged angle. Getting the tyre looked at where the car sits saves adding motorway miles to whatever the kerb already did.
A car marked both nearside wheels on the same manoeuvre. One tyre had a pinched sidewall starting to swell, the other had a scrape and nothing more. One replaced, one left alone, which is how it should go.
The valeting had exposed a cut nobody had noticed, deep enough to show the fabric underneath. That tyre had been driven on for weeks. It came off immediately.
A low mileage car near Holland Park with almost full tread and sidewalls crazed all over from years of standing. Tread depth said fine, the rubber said otherwise, and we changed the pair.
Not automatically, but it deserves inspecting. Low profile sidewalls take the impact directly and can be hurt inside while looking untouched outside.
In the central tread, sometimes. In the sidewall or shoulder, never, whatever its size. There is no way to restore a structure that flexes on every rotation.
Broken casing cords with air pushing the remaining rubber outward. It is a failure waiting for a moment, and the moment is not usually a convenient one.
Only if the surviving one is worn or mismatched enough to cause trouble. If it is sound and the same pattern, one tyre is a perfectly reasonable answer.
Yes, provided we can get to the car and you are contactable by phone. We photograph what we find and nothing is done before you have agreed to it.
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