Leading motoring mechanic Scotty Kilmer has urged every drivers to replace one vital car part today, with motorists possibly at risk. The motoring specialist stressed that car tyres with no tread are effectively “useless” and could cause drivers to “slip” all over the road.
Tyre tread grips to the road surface and creates the traction needed to drive safely. The groove helps push away standing water in wet weather conditions, preventing vehicles from losing control and aquaplaning. However, the tread will wear over time, with vehicles likely to need a new set of tyres once the grooves have thinned out.
In the title of a video uploaded to his YouTube channel, Scotty even suggested that drivers may need to “replace” their rubber right away if the tread was balding.
Scotty explained: “Today I'm going to talk about car tyres and rain. Now if you’ve ever noticed, drag cars have big wide tyres with all rubber, no tread, on the ground. All that rubber lets them accelerate fast. But a tyre with no tread and all rubber, when it rains, it’s useless and will slip like mad.
“Now your car's tread may be running real thin. It will run fine when it's dry but when it's running it will slip all over the place. So every once in a while, look at your car’s tread, make sure there is still a lot of tread depth like this one.”
The UK has strict rules around tyre tread depth with cars needing to maintain a depth of at least 1.6mm.
However, many specialists will have advised motorists to replace their tyre once the tread reaches 2mm. Meanwhile, the minimum tread depth commonly advised by safety experts is around the 3mm mark.
Experts at TyreSafe said: “Waiting until the last minute to replace your tyre can prove risky as a significant amount of tread can be worn in just one emergency manoeuvre.
“Did you know that the difference between illegal and borderline is just 0.4mm – that’s half the thickness of a bank card!”
According to the RAC, the 20p test is a simple way of quickly checking whether tyre tread is legal. They urged road users to take a 20p coin and insert it into the tread grooves on their tyre. If you can't see the outer band of the coin, it’s likely tyres will be above the legal limit.
