Chunking is the one people photograph and send in, because it looks alarming and it is hard to explain. Pieces of rubber come away from the tread blocks, leaving craters with clean edges and sometimes a glint of steel at the bottom. It happens where a tyre has been repeatedly scrubbed against square kerb edges, or where it has been run very underinflated and the blocks have flexed themselves apart. Delivery kerbs around Great Eastern Street produce plenty of both.
The assessment is all about depth. Rubber missing from the surface of a block is ugly and often survivable. Rubber missing down to the belt is not, because once the steel is exposed water gets in and the belt starts to rust and separate from the inside out. That is a tyre on a countdown whatever the tread depth says. Each crater gets judged on whether the belt is showing, and you get a straight answer either way rather than the answer with a tyre attached to it.
Kerbing an alloy on a tight street or dropping a wheel into a pothole on City Road does not always announce itself. The tyre holds air, the car drives, and the damage only shows when you crouch down and look: a gouge, a split, a bulge sitting proud of the sidewall. Christmas Day in City Road, any day in the Featherstone Street area: the line is open. Ring at 3am from the Featherstone Street area and someone answers; the Bunhill Fields area at noon is no different. EC1V takes in St Luke's and Moorfields, and we work the lot.
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Tyres around EC1V take a particular kind of punishment: repeated low speed scrubbing against square kerbs, then long spells parked while the pressures quietly drop. Both leave marks that look worse than they are, and occasionally one that is far worse than it looks. The damage gets read where the car is, in the bay or at the kerb, and you are told which of the two you have.
A car parked near Old Street had lost chunks along one shoulder from repeated kerb scrubbing. The belt was untouched underneath, so the tyre stayed on with a note to keep an eye on it.
A tyre in Hoxton had a crater with wire visible in the base. Once water reaches the belt the tyre is finished, and that one was replaced on the same visit.
A driver had covered several miles on a very underinflated tyre before noticing. The tread blocks had started tearing at their roots, which is heat damage rather than road damage.
It can be, and it is certainly a reason to look properly. If the damage exposes the cords or the belt it fails, and if it does not it still tells you something about how the tyre has been treated.
Usually because only one has been meeting kerbs, which points at the side you park on. Sometimes it points at pressures or at the geometry, and it is worth knowing which.
No. There is no repair for damage to the outside of a tyre, only for a clean penetration through the tread dealt with from the inside.
Frequently. Surface chunking with sound rubber underneath is not a reason to buy a tyre and you will be told so plainly.
Most of it is visible with the wheel turned. If anything looks like it reaches the belt the tyre comes off, because separation shows on the inside first.
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