What's the news?
Michelin has made a bold call to say that people should not be replacing their worn tyres too early, following calls to increase the minimum legal tread depth limit from 1.6- to 3mm.
The French tyre manufacturer says there is no link between tread depths at 1.6mm and increasing accident rates, while saying that replacing tyres needlessly early will both cost motorists more money and it is environmentally unsound - especially as tyres become more fuel-efficient as they wear.
It commissioned Ernst & Young to look at how much it would cost annually for EU drivers to replace their tyres at 3mm instead of 1.6mm, with the report stating it would result in an extra €6.9 billion per year in unnecessary tyre purchases and increased fuel consumption.
Instead, Michelin says that the tyre-testing regime should actually focus on testing worn tyres, preferably down to 1.6mm, to dispel some of the myths about older tyres and road safety.
Michelin states that tyre performance is all about the quality of the tyre, rather than how much tread it has left. For instance, it says that in the predominantly dry conditions all of Europe has (this, believe it or not, includes Ireland - there are more dry driving days than wet days here), worn tyres actually improve braking distances in a manner not unlike slick tyres on racing cars.
Furthermore, worn tyres are better on fuel than new rubber and they make less noise as they have reduced rolling resistance. And when it comes to wet braking, the big area of concern for most people on worn tyres, Michelin has showed in tests that as long as the tyre is of a high quality (a Michelin tyre, obviously), then a premium item worn to the tread limit can still outperform a brand-new, cheaper tyre in terms of stopping power. It is therefore calling for more worn-tyres braking tests and also wet lateral grip tests in future testing, in order to improve people's understanding of how worn tyres will perform.
Anything else?
Some more stats from that Ernst & Young report commissioned by Michelin - that €6.9 billion per year represents an additional 128 million tyres being used annually across Europe, while there would also be an extra nine million tonnes of CO2 emissions each year.