The legal minimum is 1.6mm, but it is the wording of the rule that matters and hardly anybody reads it. That depth has to be met across the central three quarters of the tread width, all the way round. Which means a tyre can be worn to the fabric on its outer shoulder and still, on paper, be legal. It also means a gauge pushed into one groove tells you very little.
We measure in three places across the width and at three points around the circumference, and it is the pattern of numbers rather than the lowest one that is interesting. Low at both shoulders with a fat middle means the tyre has been run soft. Low in the middle means the opposite. One edge gone on both fronts means the geometry is out, and fitting a fresh pair without dealing with that buys the same wear twice.
This is not urgent work, and it is better done before it becomes urgent. A gauge on a driveway on a quiet afternoon beats a rushed decision at a kerb.
Four seasons is a compromise, summer rubber is a commitment and winter tyres are a plan. Which of the three suits depends on where the car actually goes, and a car that spends its life on Bath Road has different needs from one doing two miles at a time. A Lampton cul-de-sac or a Cranford main road, tell us which. A tight terrace in Lampton or a narrow bay on the High Street is usually workable. TW3 takes in Cranford and Heston, and we work the lot.
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Planned fitting is the easy half of what we do around Hounslow. The car sits on a drive near Hounslow West, or in a staff car park out towards Heathrow, and the work happens where it stands rather than costing anybody a morning at a depot. Give us the size off the sidewall and the right tyres come with the van.
A car booked in for two fronts had a rear with 4mm across most of the tread and bare belt showing on the inner shoulder. None of it was visible with the wheel on, and the owner had been dutifully checking the outside edge for months.
A family in Heston expected to be told the whole set was due. Three tyres measured evenly and had a season left in them. One did not. We fitted the one and said we would rather see them again in the spring.
Two front tyres worn hard on the inside and clean everywhere else is not a tyre problem. It is an alignment problem eating tyres. We fitted the pair and told the owner to have the geometry set, because otherwise the new ones go the same way.
It is the point at which you are breaking the law, which is different from the point at which the tyre still works. Water has to go somewhere and shallow grooves have nowhere to put it, so wet braking falls away well before the limit.
They tell you about the groove they sit in and nothing else. Wear bars are small raised blocks moulded into the main grooves, level with the surface at the legal depth. On a tyre wearing unevenly, the bar in the healthy part still sits proud while an edge is gone.
The back, if you are buying two, regardless of which end drives the car. A car that runs out of grip at the rear in the wet comes round rather than pushing wide, and most drivers can catch the second and not the first.
Yes, and it happens regularly. We come out, read all four properly, tell you what we find and quite often leave again without fitting a thing. A tyre with a year left in it has a year left in it.
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