How shite are partworns?

[gtd2000]

I just go for whatever common sense option is available.

 

I've run "part worns" (normally as new) without trouble, I've run no name Chinese tyres and had no issues and conversely I've run premium brand tyres that had zero grip in the wet.

 

Recently I put two new tyres on my KIA Cee'd SW.

 

They are Genesys XP1 tyres (205/55-16) and cost me around £36 each fitted and balanced. You get 10% off on a Monday and then TopCashBack give 3% cashback or some malarky for ATS purchases.

So far they've been great in the snow and wet conditions, wear seems to be decent after 1000 miles with no sign of any wear. 

Tyres seem to wear out ridiculously quickly these days too! Only got 10,000 miles out of my last set of front tyres!

 

In the good old days, I'd pick up an as new tyre from the local scrap yard (usually a spare wheel) for a tenner and get it fitted for a fiver.

 

These days, they'll want 20 quid most likely, then it'll be 15 quid to have it fitted and balanced - might as well get the brand new Chinese tyres with a warranty at ATS!

 

Times have changed, it's like the local scrappy wanting more for old used parts than brand new warranted stuff on eBay... Last time I mentioned that to them they gave the feeble excuse that they couldn't compete with those prices...

[New POD]

The only part worns I've ever bought were for a metro 1275 sport, because of the 310 mm rim size and seemingly only one manufacturer meant they were ££££ new, when scrap yards were full of rusty metros with good tyres.  When I moved house, I had to get rid of 6 wheels with knackered tyres on. 

Basically I'd wonder around the scrap yard deciding which 2 tyres (with wheels were best) at the time new tyres were 60 quid a corner, and the local scrap yard did a pair for £15 cash. And I once managed to get a couple with the moulding sprues still on. 

I never bothered to balance them, as they didn't seem to need it. 

[Sir Snipes]

  On 24/03/2019 at 12:18, Isaac Hunt said:

Sort of makes me laugh when folk come out with the condemnation of part worns.

 

So you've just bought yourself a new motor, several years old, so you automatically change all four tyres do you?

 

You don't ?. So your running on part worns then.

 

For all you know, some of the covers may have been part worns fitted by a PO just to get some tread on display.an even if they were new fitted by a PO, they may have been subject to e bit of kerbing and some heavy whack on potholes.

 

Buying parts worns you need to check carefully for previous repairs and signs of casing damage etc. But there is no reason why a good part worn can't be as good as the same brand, fitted new but with 10,000 miles under its belt. The only diff is that the part worn has been on a rim and off and back on.

 

 

That's true, which is why you check a car over as best you can, but every single part worn has binned by someone previously. They don't all come from Germany, people don't prematurely replace a tyre so as to have a matching full set that often and, in my experience, anything decent would have gone in the back of the tyre monkey's car or picked off by a local drift tramp. 

[DoctorRetro]

To add some context, and hopefully not fuel to the fire, I recently purchased a set of steel wheels off someone with apparently decent tyres, only to discover a slow puncture and a vibration over 65mph. I've since replaced one of these with a part worn from a garage I trust, and low and behold. No vibration from that wheel, and it seems in better condition than the rest.

No point to be made, just that there are no guarantees with anything second hand, so why don't we all just buy brand new cars and maintain them with brand new parts?

[dozeydustman]

I do buy partworns from time to time. When I had the cougar that had an oddball size and there were limited sources of new rubber.

 

Place I got mine from were pretty honest and wouldn't sell anything with chunks missing, cracks, (obviously) broken braids and always made sure it went on the rim and didn't bulge under the weight of the car - if it did, they'd swap it for another tyre. Didn't pay more than £30 for one when I lived in Kent.

 

Only places around Chichester I've enquired about partworns for the Saab or the Corolla want the same price whatever brand, condition, some budgets being more or the same as a new one from a decent retailer.

[myglaren]

I've used part worns in the past and some were fine, others didn't last very long.

For the past few years I have fitted Sailun Atrezzo all weather tyres from Camskill and the last set from Oponeo.

 

They are very inexpensive - the last four were £168 delivered and then £40 to fit.

Could have been less if I had gone for the 195/55 rather than the 205/65s.

 

Fronts need a new set every year, rears every two to three years - regardless of make.

They are the best tyres I have found to date and none of them have ever needed balancing - unlike every previous make, some could never be balanced successfully.

 

However, that being largely off topic, I have just been reading an item in a Swedish news site - actually from a Michelin survey from 2017, that has some interesting views on worn tyres.

 

  Quote

 

Tyres wear out; and the tyre performance changes as they wear out – for example wet braking performance will
worsen over time. All tyres are not equal when they are new – what our tests at Ladoux have shown us is that tyre
performance is even less equal when worn! In fact the differences are very much accentuated once a tyre is in the latter
stages of its life. Quite surprisingly we have discovered that some tyres worn to the legal limit have a wet braking
distance virtually the same as some new tyres... and this is one of our Corporate messages; tread depth is not a good
indicator of wet braking performance.
Reinforcing our test results, recent independent studies have reported that there is no demonstrated link between
accident rates and tread depth. And of course, thanks to the 6,000 people Michelin employs in its Research and
Development activities, today’s tyre technology makes it possible to have high levels of grip right down to the last
millimetres of tread. We want to raise awareness of this and we believe that all organisations and all consumers should
start to ask and consider both new and worn performance of tyres before purchase.
Additionally, if tyres are changed early, before the legal limit, this reduces the useful life of the product, and consumers
would make unnecessary purchases. This would also have an adverse impact on the environment. So, early tyre removal
has a huge environmental impact and also represents a significant and unjustified increase in costs for consumers.
You may be asking at this point, why is Michelin doing this? If tyres were removed earlier they would sell more!
It’s a good question, and certainly many manufacturers in many industries play the card of ‘programmed obsolescence’,
that is to say an ever shorter life of their products. However Michelin has made the opposite choice, the one of the
‘programmed longevity’. Sustainable performance is the key to our business strategy because we consider customer
satisfaction with our products is paramount; our direction is not the disposable but on the durable! Today we want
to encourage the tyre industry to commit to the same voice: Responsibility, sustainability and performance... for all
of our customers around the world.

 

Taken from here, the original Michelin report - .pdf download required to read it all.