A kerb met square on, slowly, usually does no harm at all. A kerb met at an angle with the car still carrying speed is a different event. For a fraction of a second the sidewall is trapped between the kerb face and the rim flange, and the rubber does not tear so much as get shaved off. What is left behind is a gouge: a clean scoop out of the sidewall, sometimes with a lip of rubber curling away from it, and nearly always on the nearside, because that is the side that meets the kerb.
How deep it looks is not the question. Whether the cords underneath have been cut is the question. The sidewall of a car tyre has no steel in it, only layers of textile ply running across, and if the gouge has reached them the tyre is finished no matter how good the tread is. If it has only taken surface rubber off, the tyre carries on and you keep your money. That verdict needs eyes on it in decent light with the wheels turned on full lock, which takes two minutes and is worth doing before any long run.
Big alloys and low-profile tyres look good and break easily. We check both when we come out to Old Town or wherever the car is standing: the tyre for cuts, splits and bulges, and the alloy for damage, before anything goes back on. Whether it is Symonds Green in rush hour or the A1(M) at midnight, we answer. On the A602, day or night, Old Town included, arrival across Hertfordshire runs 30 to 60 minutes.
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This town is built around roundabouts and long sweeping estate roads, and both of them punish a nearside wheel. Roundabout exits are where the kerb reaches out, and the tight turns into the closes and cul de sacs do the rest. Sidewall damage from that is far more common around Symonds Green and Pin Green than nails are, and it is the kind you can spot yourself with a torch on a Sunday.
Clipping the kerb on the way out of a roundabout is the common one, and the damage is always on whichever wheel mounted it. On a car in Chells the scoop was deep enough to show ply, so that tyre came off.
A gouge that looks survivable on the day can still raise a bulge afterwards if a handful of cords were nicked. Once a smooth swelling rises out of the sidewall the casing has already failed and no repair goes near it.
Low mileage cars fail on age rather than tread. Fine cracking through the sidewall grooves on a car that lives outside is a genuine reason to replace, and we will show you the four digit date code stamped on the tyre.
Far from it. Most kerb marks are cosmetic and take rubber that was there to be sacrificed. It becomes serious when you can see fibres, when the surface is broken rather than scuffed, or when the wall has changed shape at all.
It helps. A clear picture in daylight, straight on and close, tells us whether we are coming to look or coming with a tyre. It is not a substitute for the inspection, because a gouge can hide depth at an angle.
No, and saying so costs us the sale often enough. If the damage has not reached the structure we tell you it is fine and we leave. The value of getting somebody out is an honest answer either way.
Not automatically. It matters when the surviving tyre is well worn or very different, because a big difference in grip across an axle shows up under braking. If they are close in tread and type, replacing the one is fine.
1.6mm across the central three quarters of the tread, right the way round. Plenty of tyres pass on that measurement while being unsafe in other ways, which is why we look at the walls and the inside rather than just the grooves.
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