Safe to use very old spare tyre ??

[Kowalski]

To Clarify... A retread is as stated above but is more commonly found on heavy commercial vehicles. On the other hand a 'remould' is where a tyre has the rubber ground off the tread area AND the sidewall which can then be more easily inspected for suitability for further use and if suitable can then be remoulded.....It can be said that this is prefferable to a new tyre because the 'carcass' which is being re-used has already proved that it is 'proven' as opposed to a new tyre which is 'unproven'.

In the UK there is a distinction between remould and retread, retreaded tyres are used on tucks and often when you see what you think is a truck tyre on the side of the motorway it is in fact just the retread which has come off.

Retread is the American English equivilent of remould, I think Bernie meant "remould" but used "retread" instead, hence me using the wrong word.

I stand by what I said about remoulds though. If you're making remoulded tyres you are getting a hold of a waste product and attempting to make it into a new product. The tyres you start off with aren't uniform, they'll all be worn differently and potentially damaged. You've got to convert them into some sort of uniform base (by grinding off the rubber) when they're not all of identical constuction and material. Then you've got to get them to go into the mould correctly and sit in the right place and if you get it right you've made a usable tyre. I've seen some new tyres with a lot of lead on the wheel rim, its pretty uncommon with new tyres but with remoulds more often than not they need a massive amount of lead, i.e. the tolerances they're made to aren't particularly good. There is also the question of how well the new rubber sticks to the old and whether or not the inspection spotted any damage that may have been present (can they spot all internal delamination, corrosion of the steel and metal fatigure?)

With the quality control on new tyres now (my new tyres took very little weight to balance them) I'd prefer new tyres from a decent manufacturer, even if they are unproven. The "proven" carcass in a remould may have been "proven" to be bad

[BernieLugg]

Retread is the American English equivilent of remould, I think Bernie meant "remould" but used "retread" instead, hence me using the wrong word.

I did indeed mean remould - my roots show again - apologies for the confuddledom!

[bxbodger]

Just to scare people, the next flight you go on, the plane will highly likely be landing on tyres that have been re-moulded more than once....... !!!!!

[dnsey]

From what I've seen (on film) of remould factories, the products are inspected very carefully at all stages of manufacture, and they have quite a high reject rate, so I don't think there's any problem.
I would hope that the government research people did some careful checking before approving remoulds in general(or am I just being too trusting?)

[jeremy]

One arguement goes that the carcass of a remould tyre has been tested - that of your brand new one hasn't!

Certainly in years gone by some reputable manufacturers have sold a range of remoulds - not to be confused with 'Remould Quality' which were often not perfect but acceptable new tyres.

[zzf00l]

Quite correct.... and indeed some lesser known makes of tyre are actually made by the likes of Dunlop/Michelin etc using their 'old' design of tyre tread pattern with different sidewall plates in the mould. SO if you want to waste your money.... throw away your perfectly good quality well respected tyre manufactures product and by a crappy tyre from a scrap yard.

[sooty]

I'm feeling really tired reading all these, nothing to do with what was asked to start with. ooooh

[Vic Flange]

I think this old horse has run it's last.