Worn tyres and braking distances

[MR2Mike]

Not sure if this is the best place to post this but take a look at this webiste:

www.etyres.co.uk/tread-depths-distance

They claim that as the tread depth reduce, stopping distances vastly increase, taking 60% further to stop at the legal minimum of 1.6mm. This is in the dry, not the wet!

Can anyone explain why this might be? I personaly don't belive it, certainly I've not noticed any loss of grip in the dry as my tyres wear (standing water is another matter entirely of course).

[Trooper2]

I think you read the graph incorrectly; any stop shaded in gray is a dry road stop and any stop shaded blue is a wet road stop, they only show one dry road stop on the graph, everything else is wet road with decreasing tread depth.

[leorest]

Trooper2 said:

I think you read the graph incorrectly; any stop shaded in gray is a dry road stop and any stop shaded blue is a wet road stop, they only show one dry road stop on the graph, everything else is wet road with decreasing tread depth.

I think you're correct. Blatant scaremongering in order to boost sales! This was meant to be misinterpreted so people thought dry stopping was compromised.

My guess would be dry stopping would be increased based on no factual evidence whatsoever

I aim to change tyres when they get below 2.5mm. In the summer I might let it get a bit lower but in the winter they get changed before.

[falcemob]

It wouldn't be anything to do with the fact it's a tyre company's web site and they may want to try and sell you some tyres.

[Mr Whippy]

I wonder how much water is on this road too. Literally tested on standing water?

Dave

[MR2Mike]

I thought I must be missing something, obvioulsy didn't look closely enough The chart really is a load of bollox, normaly the sort of stuff reserved for scamera pratnerships, the information is very arbitrary, no test conditions stated etc.

[combemarshal]

Dry roads, in England, this time of year, you live in a tunnel!!

[leorest]

MR2Mike said:

I thought I must be missing something, obvioulsy didn't look closely enough The chart really is a load of bollox, normaly the sort of stuff reserved for scamera pratnerships, the information is very arbitrary, no test conditions stated etc.

Like wot I said "Blatant scaremongering in order to boost sales!" Ignore it and use your common sense about when to replace tyres.

combemarshal said:

Dry roads, in England, this time of year, you live in a tunnel!!

Looks quite dry at the moment

[Mr Whippy]

I bet those stopping distances are on a surface where the water level generates aquaplaning as soon as the tread depth drops below new basically, just so they get that nice increase.

Big difference between a wet road and standing water!

Dave

[GravelBen]

leorest said:

I aim to change tyres when they get below 2.5mm. In the summer I might let it get a bit lower but in the winter they get changed before.

I currently have 6mm tread on the front and <1.5mm on the rears - makes it much more entertaining in the wet!
getting into summer here now, but will be replacing the rears before the end of summer

[denisb]

From the testing I have done in my race car on race circuits on test days, supported by a couple of grands worth of data logging, I believe the web sites figures are fairly accurate.

Round Brands we went from half worn tyres to new but bedded in ones and immediately improved 1.7 seconds a lap with no other changes and on exactly the same make and type of tyre.

It is worth remembering that tyres 'harden' as they wear which has a more significant impact on wet weather performance than dry.