O T Re-Moulds

Stone Glider

I have just bought some tyres for the car. They were a terrific price and I am a cheapskate. Have I done a Bad Thing?/

woodnut

I always buy the cheapest possible tyres for my car. Haven't bought remoulds yet, but as I have no interest in "testing the handling limits" (or whatever) of my diesel mondeo, I can't think of a good reason why not. Surely there'll be some british standard that applies?
So you've done a good thing, probably counts as recycling also

meanredspider

Possibly a bad thing. My car had Accelera Alpha budget tyres fitted by the dealer - shocking shocking tyres - absolutely no grip in the wet - I'm stunned that these tyres are legal. I honestly can't understand why anybody would take chances with their own lives and those of other road users (especially cyclists) by cutting corners on tyres. Cut corners in just about every other thing but not tyres.

daviesee

Tyres are the only things keeping you on the road.

Frankly, I value my life more than a few bob.

Stone Glider

Not a very demanding driver, tend to get18,000 miles or so from a set of tyres and replace them when the indicated wear is 3 to 4mm. I shall report back after a few weeks of mixed driving.

anthdci

you'll probably not notice the difference in the dry, you wont be able to push your car enough. However when it gets really wet or icey the difference is night and day.

chadders81

If you're front wheel drive and have them on the rear, not too dreadful but they will wear out quickly.

Regularly replaced my tyres with part-worns before I moved to London and they were always fine but insist on checking them first. The place I went to used to let me pick them out and some of them were almost brand new.

woodnut

Surely, what you drive and how you drive has more effect than what tyres you use. Even in the wet or snow it's pretty marginal..I always buy budget tyres, and I was still one of the few to get to work in the snow, go figure.
I drive a slow, front wheel drive car, relatively heavy, not particularly wide wheels, and diesel so it can bobble along at nice low revs. Grip is just not an issue, even in crap weather.
If I was driving a Caterham Seven, I'd worry a bit more about my tyre choice.

daviesee

woodnut wrote:

Surely, what you drive and how you drive has more effect than what tyres you use. Even in the wet or snow it's pretty marginal..I always buy budget tyres, and I was still one of the few to get to work in the snow, go figure.
I drive a slow, front wheel drive car, relatively heavy, not particularly wide wheels, and diesel so it can bobble along at nice low revs. Grip is just not an issue, even in crap weather.
If I was driving a Caterham Seven, I'd worry a bit more about my tyre choice.

All that is very, very true and there are a lot of 4x4 drivers that could learn from that in winter.

However, if you have any power and/or drive with any enthusiasm then budget tyres should be avoided. IMHO.

EKE_38BPM

A good car with bad tyres is a bad car.
A bad car with bad tyres could be lethal.

Tyres are the only thing in contact with the road and I much prefer my car wouldn't start than wouldn't stop. This thinking applies to brakes too.

meanredspider

woodnut wrote:

Surely, what you drive and how you drive has more effect than what tyres you use. Even in the wet or snow it's pretty marginal..I always buy budget tyres, and I was still one of the few to get to work in the snow, go figure.
I drive a slow, front wheel drive car, relatively heavy, not particularly wide wheels, and diesel so it can bobble along at nice low revs. Grip is just not an issue, even in crap weather.
If I was driving a Caterham Seven, I'd worry a bit more about my tyre choice.

You can reduce your reliance on the tyres but it is in adverse and emergency situations when the quality of your tyres count. If you always drive well within the limits (in normal conditions) of your budget tyres, you'll have no sense of the difference that a good tyre provides. When a child runs out in front of you on a wet road, for instance, you'll suddenly appreciate how much better a quality tyre is - and the difference is massive. I never skimp on tyres and run winter tyres once the temperatures drop. Bizarrely, I'd worry less about tyres on a Caterham 7 - it would be far less likely to be driven in foul wet weather, its stopping distance would be shorter than most cars even with cheap tyres, its cornering speeds would be much higher too. Besides that, it would be more fun at lower speeds with less grip which is exactly why Palmersport driving events fit cheap tyres to their Caterhams.

woodnut

meanredspider wrote:

You can reduce your reliance on the tyres but it is in adverse and emergency situations when the quality of your tyres count. If you always drive well within the limits (in normal conditions) of your budget tyres, you'll have no sense of the difference that a good tyre provides. When a child runs out in front of you on a wet road, for instance, you'll suddenly appreciate how much better a quality tyre is - and the difference is massive. I never skimp on tyres and run winter tyres once the temperatures drop. Bizarrely, I'd worry less about tyres on a Caterham 7 - it would be far less likely to be driven in foul wet weather, its stopping distance would be shorter than most cars even with cheap tyres, its cornering speeds would be much higher too. Besides that, it would be more fun at lower speeds with less grip which is exactly why Palmersport driving events fit cheap tyres to their Caterhams.

Yeah I can see that, but, to me, it's one of those "all things being equal" situations, when things aren't equal. I'd hazard a guess a pair of budget tyres with loads of tread will be far better than a pair of Pirellis that are close to the legal limit?
Also how many people drive too close and too fast, thinking that their high ticket tyres will stop them under any conditions. In the end road safety has far more to do with attitude than rubber.
In an ideal world I'd buy the most expensive tyres going, but, in order to be really safe, I'd replace them every six months.
That's interesting about the Caterhams, though I only like going fast on bikes, sliding about in a car would frighten me to death!

daviesee

woodnut wrote:

Yeah I can see that, but, to me, it's one of those "all things being equal" situations, when things aren't equal. I'd hazard a guess a pair of budget tyres with loads of tread will be far better than a pair of Pirellis that are close to the legal limit?

I doubt it. When I got my MR2 MK1 many moons ago the second hand dealer had fitted new budget tyres.
Every roundabout in the wet was an adventure :shock:
New decent tyres fitted and the car was planted, even when the tyres were getting close to worn (under 3mm).

No drive can be guaranteed to be "equal". Child cycling off pavement, ped with pods crossing the road, sudden downpour, black ice under trees on an otherwise dry day......... The list goes on. It's not worth it for my life, or my conscience.

meanredspider

woodnut wrote:

Yeah I can see that, but, to me, it's one of those "all things being equal" situations, when things aren't equal. I'd hazard a guess a pair of budget tyres with loads of tread will be far better than a pair of Pirellis that are close to the legal limit?
Also how many people drive too close and too fast, thinking that their high ticket tyres will stop them under any conditions. In the end road safety has far more to do with attitude than rubber.
In an ideal world I'd buy the most expensive tyres going, but, in order to be really safe, I'd replace them every six months.
That's interesting about the Caterhams, though I only like going fast on bikes, sliding about in a car would frighten me to death!

There's a strong misunderstanding about tyres and tread. If we could be sure the roads were always dry, tyres would be slick with no tread at all. The tread only needs to be deep enough to clear standing water. The tyre compound, on the other hand, makes a massive difference. The tyre effectively chemically interacts with the road surface. On cheap tyres, this interaction is poor. Agreed that expensive tyres shouldn't be a ticket to drive wrecklessly but I was stunned how bad a set of cheap tyres were and had a huge falling-out with the dealer that supplied me the car (Chris Variava's of Nottingham) for trying to save a few quid by fitting awful tyres. I took them off and threw them away - I don't want to be on the same Tarmac as someone on that type of rubber.

I race an old Alfa so I'm very comfortable with the car sliding in the right circumstances. I'm also very very aware of the difference that tyres make in a wide range of conditions. But I don't take chances on the road (one of the reasons why I race) because there are far too many uncontrolled variables and I care too much about my fellow road-users.

optimisticbiker

meanredspider wrote:

... I race an old Alfa so I'm very comfortable with the car sliding in the right circumstances. I'm also very very aware of the difference that tyres make in a wide range of conditions. But I don't take chances on the road (one of the reasons why I race) because there are far too many uncontrolled variables and I care too much about my fellow road-users.

This + 1

Thats why I always fit the best tyre i can to my Mk1 TT - Pirelli P-Zero every time.. other full-price full spec tyres are noticably worse - and I keep the worn out ones for track days . I once had an old Volvo 240 estate - definitely NOT a performance car - that was virtually undrivable on cheap tyres in anything other than perfectly dry conditions.

But its important to differentiate between cheap original tyres, part-worn and remoulds.

Cheap original tyres meet all EU standards but are generally budget 'no name' brands imported from China & India. They can vary from OK to downright diabolical, generally their wet weather performance is poorer because the tread design is usually relatively simple and is inefficient at clearing the water out. Longevity is mediocre becuase the tread material isn't the best.

Part-worn are original manufacturer tyres that have tread left. I always change my tyres at 3mm though the legal limit is 1.6mm, so its possible they could get resold as part-worn (though I always keep mine as I said). This category can also include tyres with lots of tread that have been repaired - BMW Mini run-flats is an example (as Mrs OB has found twice now) - Mini wont plug a puncture but wil insist on replacing it with new, but they'll happily sell the old one on to someone that will and then will offer for sale as a 'part-worn'. Under EU regulations, part-worn tyres must be marked 'part-worn' on the carcass, else its illegal to sell them.

Remoulds - or more correctly retreads - are common for trucks, because the tyres are designed to be retreaded, and its very cost-effective on those very large deep tread tyres. The process involves stripping off the outer rubber leaving the carcass and then moulding a new full-depth rubber tread on. The final tyre again must meet EU regulations and be marked with an 'e' mark and the type approval code else its illegal, but there are many places that sell illegally retreaded tyres (its not an offence to import them). Also, even for legal ones retreaded in the UK, there's no requirement to check the state of the carcass so a tyre thats got internal damage, e.g. broken banding, could have been retreaded. Generally, for car tyres, the tread material and tread design is the cheapest they can get away with and so performance & longevity is similar to the cheap imported brands.

veronese68

As with new tyres there are varying qualities of remoulds. I won't put them on my modern Alfa, but I used to run Colway remoulds on an old Triumph Vitesse. They make a lot of tyres for classic rallying and I got some that were for tarmac use wet or dry. They were fine, but the grip levels were never going to be high. They did wear quickly though. But I did do a Dutch tarmac rally in that car.

First.Aspect

I thought re-moulds (for cars tyres) were limited to 50mph?

Regarding treads and road surfaces - I think the treads, just as they do with bikes, provide different angles at which the tyre meets the road. If you are using hard wearing tyres, rather than a compound which conforms to the road surface, I think its better to have tread for more than merely clearing water.

Regarding crap tyres generally. If you drive an asthmatic front wheel drive car gently around town, you might not even notice. But if you drive a rwd car with anything more than no power at all, you'll notice. I prefer the drive gently on decent tyres approach.

roger_merriman

First Aspect wrote:

I thought re-moulds (for cars tyres) were limited to 50mph?

Regarding treads and road surfaces - I think the treads, just as they do with bikes, provide different angles at which the tyre meets the road. If you are using hard wearing tyres, rather than a compound which conforms to the road surface, I think its better to have tread for more than merely clearing water.

Regarding crap tyres generally. If you drive an asthmatic front wheel drive car gently around town, you might not even notice. But if you drive a rwd car with anything more than no power at all, you'll notice. I prefer the drive gently on decent tyres approach.

older remoulds where fairly poor and limited to 50mph but as far as i can tell modern ones are not.

I suspect that a FWD car all things being equal would be harder on the tyres partially the front, with most of the loading plus stearing loads etc.

Stone Glider

Thanks for that, all the remarks have spurred me to a bit of 'research'. It seems the carcasses are tested prior to treatment. My tyres are marked as being compliant with a British Standard and having been made in Britain. Re-moulds are popular in Germany, where repaired tyres are forbidden. Also most trucks, coachesand aircraft have them fitted. Lots of anecdotal evidence (see above) about the perceived dangers but I remembered some anecdotal evidence of my own.

My friend Stu's Dad, Mr Reynolds had a tyre re-moulding factory in Cardiff, 'back-in-the-day'. He told me that the process was exactly the same as a new tyre once the old carcass had been prepared. This was many years ago and I had forgotten the conversation but it came back to mind during this discussion. It probably accounts for my positive opinion of re-moulds when I decided to buy them.

UndercoverElephant

I've used re-moulds on a car I was going to give back to the lease company after an MOT. These days they're actually pretty good, with strict testing on the carcass before it's reused. They probably weren't up there with the best, but they were waaaay better than the worn ones they replaced in the wet. I seem to recall that in tests they came between the top brands and the budget brands in terms of performance, with part-worn tyres being by far the worst.