Treadwear: A common warning sign in car tyres

Tyres come with different parts like sidewall, shoulder and tread. Moreover, the internal structure of car tyres is also essential for their performance. Negative changes in the internal or outer structure are not good for the endurance and strength of car tyres. You cannot be aware of the internal changes but you can visually check the outer area of your car tyres.

If you check your Car Tyres Birmingham regularly, you may observe some issues like tread wear, cracks and bulges easily. These warning signals indicate that your tyres are near their retirement.

In this blog, we will talk about treadwear. Tyres come with optimum tread depth but they lose it gradually due to multiple factors. This condition is called tread wear in technical terms. Tread wear is an easily visible sign. You do not need the help of a professional to detect tread wear in your tyres.

Importance of tyre tread

Unlike racing tyres, passenger tyres come with a tread pattern that has sipes, blocks and grooves. Tyres come with different tread patterns according to their functions in varied driving conditions. Just like the tread design, tyres may come with different tread depths.

Tread patterns in car tyres are important because of the traction that is required on both wet and dry roads. Moreover, tyres need tread design to expel extra water on wet surfaces. Your car is more likely to slip on wet roads if you are not driving with suitable and rain-friendly tyres. Rain-friendly tyres come with suitable tread patterns and tread depth to help you in rainwater.

Why should you not ignore treadwear?

Treadwear is a dangerous condition. Even if you are an efficient car driver, do not drive on bald tyres.

Bald tyres cannot make proper traction on roads. Therefore, your vehicle may slip at any time.

Bald tyres are risky because of the possibility of blowouts and punctures. A sharp object may easily pierce the thin tread of bald tyres. Similarly, tyres with low tread depth easily explode due to heat and similar triggering factors.

A suitable tread pattern is necessary to keep car drivers safe in wet conditions. Bald tyres would not be able to help you because they cannot displace rainwater. As a result, water will accumulate underneath their surface to cause hydroplaning.

Tyres with a shallow tread pattern are likely to lose air more quickly than tyres with normal tread depth. Therefore, you must check your bald tyres more frequently for air pressure.

As you see, various reasons make bald tyres inappropriate for car drivers. Therefore, you must not ignore the condition and change your bald tyres as soon as possible.

The minimum tread depth in tyres

Tyres lose tread depth due to several reasons. When they reach the limit of 1.6mm tread depth, they become illegal for the public roads of the UK.

According to the rules and regulations of the UK, you cannot drive your car with bald tyres after they have reached the legal limit. Therefore, you must change your tyres before they hit the minimum limit.

You can keep an eye on the tread depth by just observing tread wear bars. These tiny bars are not visible in tyres with proper tread depth. Therefore, your tyres are balding if you notice these wear bars.

You can measure the tread depth with the help of a coin as well. This technique will give you a rough idea of the tread depth. If you want more precise readings, you can use a tread depth gauge to measure the tread depth.

Common reasons and preventive maintenance

After your tyres become bald, you have limited options to deal with the situation. Before the occurrence of the issue, you can preserve your tyres for a long time with proper maintenance steps.

Treadwear takes place in car tyres because of several reasons. Your tyres will be safe for a long time if your preventive steps eliminate the negative effects of such reasons.

You have to consider the following reasons!

Heat and friction:

When your vehicle runs on roads, it creates friction and heat. This combination is not favourable for the rubber material of car tyres. Due to the negative effects of friction and heat, your car tyres wear out steadily.

Speed of the vehicle:

The intensity of friction and heat depends on the speed of the vehicle. If you drive your car slowly, heat and friction will surely take place but their effects will be less intense to slow down the process of tread wear. On the other hand, tyres will wear quickly due to the high speed of your vehicle.

Road surface:

We must consider the role of road surface in the process of tread wear. If you drive your car on a rough road surface, more heat and friction will take place to degrade the rubber material.

Air pressure:

Wrong air pressure also causes tread wear in car tyres because the size of the contact patch is changed due to inflation level. High air pressure will affect the middle area and low air pressure causes air pressure on both sides of the tread.

Wheel alignment:

If you ignore wheel alignment for a long time, you will observe uneven tread wear in tyres as a warning sign or an untreatable issue.

As you see, certain steps like checking air pressure and wheel alignment are surely possible to maintain car tyres for a long time. Moreover, you can slow down your vehicle to decrease the negative effects of heat and friction.