You reverse into a space, hear the sidewall scrape and get out to look. There is a grey scuff along the rubber and a nick you can catch a fingernail on. The question is whether that is cosmetic or whether it has gone through into the casing, and it is genuinely hard to tell standing on the pavement in the dark.
The distinction is this. Kerb rash is abrasion of the outer rubber, ugly but structurally irrelevant, and a tyre can carry quite a lot of it. A cut is a different thing entirely: once the edge of the kerb has parted the rubber deep enough to reach the cords, the tyre is finished, because those cords are what hold the pressure and they do not repair. We come out, look at the depth and the shape of the damage rather than its length, and give you a straight answer either way.
A bulge in a sidewall is a tyre telling you the casing has already failed. What we can do is come to Vauxhall, confirm what you are looking at, and fit the correct replacement on the spot, whether the car is on a driveway in Lansdowne Green or parked up in Vauxhall Cross. School run in South Lambeth or 1am in Nine Elms, we answer the same. Christmas Day in Albert Embankment, any day in Lansdowne Green: the line is open.
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The kerbs on the tight streets behind the gyratory catch a lot of sidewalls, and the ones running toward Pimlico and Stockwell are no kinder. Nobody kerbs a wheel on purpose, and most people then spend a fortnight wondering whether they got away with it. A five minute look answers that. What matters is the depth of the damage, not how bad it looks from three feet away.
A driver near Vauxhall Cross was convinced a badly scraped sidewall meant a new tyre. The rash was surface deep with no cords disturbed, so we told them it was fine and charged nothing for saying so.
A shallow looking cut on a car parked in Lansdowne Green opened up once it was cleaned out. The cords were visible at the base of it, so that tyre was replaced there and then.
A kerb strike hard enough to gouge the tyre near the Albert Embankment had also flattened part of the rim edge. We showed the owner both before anything was decided.
Depth. A scuff has taken rubber off the surface and stopped there. A cut has parted it and headed toward the cords underneath. We clean the damage out and look at what is at the bottom of it rather than how long it looks.
No, and a bulge is worse. It means cords have already broken inside and only rubber is holding the shape. There is no repair for that and it can let go without warning, so the car should not be driven on it at all.
Yes, and it happens regularly. There is nothing in it for us in selling a tyre that does not need replacing, and a customer who got told the truth once tends to ring back.
Usually worth it. A kerb hit hard enough to mark the tyre has often taken a chunk out of the rim edge too, and that can cause a slow leak at the bead long after the tyre itself looks fine.
That is most of what this job is. We come to the car, take a proper look with the wheel turned over, and tell you what we find. If it needs replacing we can do it there, and if it does not we say so.
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