usable tread on an mt tire (1 Viewer)

[semlin]

Pondering buying a used set of MT tires as a second set for offroad only instead of new. I have seen a couple advertised locally in the 60-70% range of remaining tread for about 1/3 the price of new. Trying to decide if it is false economy.

A 285/16 MT tire has 19/32" of tread depth when new. At what depth of tread would folks say they become useless? E.G. 60% remaining tread is only 33% remaining life if you need to have 40% tread for the tire to function properly. Plus, how much does functionality of the tire deteriorate in the last part of its useful life?

 

[turbocruiser]

IMHO, anything less than 6/32 is worthless off road, anything less than 3/32 is dangerous on road. HTH.

 

[semlin]

thanks turbo. I would have guessed 8/32

 

[turbocruiser]

thanks turbo. I would have guessed 8/32

Well, 8 is better than 6, 10 is better than 8, etc. When I say 6 is the minimum i really mean the minimum and if I had MT's i would probably try to sell them at around 8 to 10/32, get 1/2 or so of full price and then put on some new meats; I think that's really why you are seeing so many of them offered up in the paper.

The other thing to think about, and something i really have not researched enough, is that according to my tire place, once a tire starts to wear unevenly due to poor alignment, etc, it is extremely hard to get it to wear evenly even when putting them on a vehicle with perfect alignment. Seems sorta counter-intuitive to me but it may be true. In that case, unless the tires appear to have worn really evenly, I'd say the savings up front will just cost more later.

Last thing to think about is it is not normally possible to purchase the extended road hazard warranty on used tires. I would not want to have MT's without that protection; one slashed sidewall and replacement at full price and you have just eaten up whatever savings came from purchasing used MT's. Last time i checked at my tire place the tire warranty was about $14 per tire and included everything except vandalism; I asked over and over about offroad damage and it is fully covered.

Hope this helps man.

 

[Bob_Garrett]

Another thing to keep in mind when buying used tires, is the age of the tire and its exposure to the weather. The rubber compounds tend to harden with age, so that a tire that is several years old and has spent most of its time on a vehicle parked outside, will likely have less traction than a new tire, even though it still has a significant amount of tread remaining.

Bob

 

[turbocruiser]

Another thing to keep in mind when buying used tires, is the age of the tire and its exposure to the weather. The rubber compounds tend to harden with age, so that a tire that is several years old and has spent most of its time on a vehicle parked outside, will likely have less traction than a new tire, even though it still has a significant amount of tread remaining.

Bob

Very good point, totally forgot to think about that aspect! One reason why Bridgestone with its REVOS and some other models is making a two part rubber compound with one variation of rubber for the 'top' half of the tread and another for the bottom half of the tread - designed to allow the tire to perform "as new" as long as possible.

Another point possibly leaning towards paranoid - no real way to know whether or not the tire was driven flat, left to sit too long with low pressure, etc.; other than visible damage, lots of these things are hidden.

Again, good point about aging.