There is plenty of tread on it, so why does it need changing? Fair question. The answer is stamped into the sidewall. Look for a small oval holding four digits: the first two are the week, the last two the year, so 2419 means the nineteenth week of 2019. Rubber ages whether the car is driven or not. The oils that keep it pliable work their way out, the compound goes hard, and wet grip falls away long before the tread does. A seven year old tyre with 6mm left can be worse in standing water than a much newer one with half of that.
Where this really bites is spares and second cars. The wheel that has sat under the boot floor since the car was new is exactly the one that gets found out on a hard shoulder. So when we come out to fit one in a hurry, we read the codes on the other three while we are down there. New tyres carry a two year warranty and a recent date code, and we show you the code on the one going on, because nobody should have to take that on trust.
6mm across the central three-quarters is illegal, and the penalty is per tyre. Where a tyre is genuinely past it, we bring the correct size out to the car in Rosehill and fit it where it stands, balanced, valve checked, pressures set. School run in Benhilton or 1am in Belmont, we answer the same. Christmas Day in Belmont, any day in Cheam: the line is open.
Emergency tyre replacement in Sutton is part of our wider 24-hour emergency callout cover. For emergency tyre replacement in Sutton, call 07717 389637 or ask us for a quote.
There are a great many low mileage cars around here, and low mileage is exactly what hides an old tyre. Short hops to the High Street, a run over to Cheam and back, then a fortnight parked. The tread barely moves, so nothing ever prompts you to look, and then it rains hard. On a car doing a couple of thousand miles a year, the date codes matter more than the depth does.
Fifteen years under the boot carpet, never used, still looking new. It was hard as a plastic bucket and squared off at the shoulder. The driver had been carrying an ornament around, not a spare.
A low mileage car that had spent most of its life sitting outside. Tread depth was close to new and the front tyres were skating in the wet. The date codes explained it in about four seconds.
Called out for one flat, we found the opposite corner was nine years old and cracking at the shoulder. A pair went on rather than leave one fresh tyre working against a tired one.
On the sidewall, in a small oval at the end of the long code, four digits and no more. If you can only find three, that tyre was made before the year 2000 and wants replacing regardless of how it looks.
Not for cars. The ten year rule written into law covers larger passenger-carrying and goods vehicles, so on a car it is judgement rather than statute. Most makers suggest a proper look at five years and replacement somewhere around ten.
A reasonable suspicion, so check us as we go. Read the date code yourself, press a thumb into the groove and feel how little the rubber gives, then compare it against a newer tyre on the same car. Hardness you can feel is not a sales pitch.
It gets noisier, it rides harshly, and it is far likelier to let go suddenly when it hits something. Aged rubber cracks where fresh rubber deforms, so a pothole that would only bruise a newer tyre can split an old one open.
It is a short job. Most of it is jacking, balancing and torquing the nuts back to the figure in the handbook, since the tyre itself is the quick part. You will spend longer finding the locking key than we spend on the wheel.
★★★★★ 4.9 from 151 verified Google reviews.
Read all 151 reviews on Google →Prefer a callback? Send your details for a emergency tyre replacement price in Sutton.