The legal minimum is one point six millimetres, and almost everybody quotes it wrongly, because it is not a single reading taken wherever the tyre happens to look worst. The requirement is one point six millimetres throughout a continuous band that runs around the entire circumference of the tyre and covers the central three quarters of the tread width. The outer eighth on each side falls outside the measured band. So a tyre can be worn smooth right at its edge and still be legal, and a tyre with plenty of rubber on both shoulders can be illegal down the middle.
That is worth knowing when you are deciding whether a set has another winter left in it. Wear is almost never even. Long spells over pressure take the centre out first, running soft wears both edges, and an alignment fault takes one shoulder down while the rest of the tyre looks healthy enough. A single reading tells you nothing about any of it. Measure across the band and at three or four points around the tyre, and if those numbers disagree with each other by much, the wear pattern is telling you something about the car that is worth acting on before a new set goes on and wears exactly the same way.
Somebody else can be with the car; it does not have to be you. All we need is the size, the location and somebody who can hand over the keys, whether that is in Sheldon Square or over in Little Venice. Level in Praed Street, sloping in Edgware Road: we set the car straight first. Underground parking in Westbourne Terrace or Little Venice is worth flagging.
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Cars kept around Westbourne Terrace and the permit streets behind it do a great deal of tight manoeuvring and very few long runs, which is a diet that wears tyres unevenly and slowly. That combination is the awkward one, because a set looks fine for years and then fails on one narrow band nobody has ever measured. If you are planning a new set, take the readings before you order rather than afterwards, since the wear pattern often argues for having the alignment checked as well, and there is no sense in putting fresh tyres onto a car that will chew them the same way.
A set on a car parked off Sussex Gardens had good depth on both shoulders and was down to the wear bars across the centre. It had been run well over its pressures for a long time, and the healthy looking shoulders were flattering it.
Another car had a single front tyre worn away on the inner edge alone. The tread that counts was still legal, which is why nobody had questioned it, and the alignment underneath had been out for the best part of a year.
A tread gauge costs very little and covers a whole car in a couple of minutes. Measuring at several points around each tyre is the only way to see a pattern, and the pattern is usually more useful than any single number.
Across the central three quarters of the tread width and around the entire circumference. It has to be met continuously in that band, so a worn strip anywhere around the tyre counts even if the rest of it is deep. The outer edges sit outside the area that is measured.
Not on its own. The edges are largely outside the band that gets measured, and a tyre worn out down the centre is illegal no matter how good its shoulders look. Centre wear on its own usually means the tyre has been run over its pressures for a long period.
Tread wear indicators, moulded into the bottom of the main grooves at the legal minimum depth. When the tread has worn level with them, that part of the tyre is at the limit. They are a useful quick check and no substitute for a gauge across the whole band.
Every few months on a car in regular use, and before any long journey. It takes a couple of minutes. What you are looking for is not only the depth but whether all four are wearing evenly, because uneven wear generally means something else on the car wants attention.
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