douglasr

My rears were at the legal limit - an even 1.6 mm all round. Until recently I hadn't noticed much difference, but as soon at the tread was worn down to the wear indicators, there was a marked difference in noise - especially on the motorway. There was a low frequency hum the you could feel through the gearstick and pedals - very odd. Grip was fine (I've not been out in the wet for a while), but there was a noticable increase in bump steer. So much so, that the car became a bit of a handfull on the bumpy b-roads I frequent.

Due to a recent bit of alloy bashing, I purchased an alloy wheel and tyre from fellow board member Baptistsan. The tyre had about 4 mm of tread left and I had a tyre sitting in the garage with 3.5 mm on it, so I thought I may as well wear them both down over the rest of the summer. They were duly swapped a couple of weeks ago. First impressions were not good - the car pulled to the left under hard acceleration and lift off at high revs - just like Ready S2K - a squirt of air seems to have solved the problem. Most noticable is the absence of vibration and noise. The ride is much improved and I feel a lot more confident on those bumpy B roads again.

My recommendation is not to wait until your tyres get down to the legal limit - change them at 2mm minimum.

alex.stanley

Wise words, by the sounds of it

C7BLE

The last 1.6 seems to be made entirley of hard plastic
giving you the impression you have tread, with none of the traction.

Quite a few people have been caught out by this illusion

Glad to see you're still posting Douglas, I thought you were looking at changing the S?

dws2000

Last summer I had barely legal tyres for a couple of weeks and I had to go very delicately in the wet, the back end was quite willing to play. I made a point of not doing any motorway driving during those weeks, didn't fancy the idea of being caught in a downpour with puddles in the motorway. The change in wet weather grip with new boots was very noticeable.