OT - remould tyres

The Volvo is ready for new front tyres. The OEM pirellis managed 11K, the Michelins that followed them have gone 24K which is good value for the extra five quid they cost. They were also lots quieter.

Now, I can buy the Michelins for about £110 online or at the local fastfit (who I know and trust to do a decent job) for £145. Not a big difference for the convenience but still a big whack in the wallet, especially as the rears are nearly ready for replacing too!

However, the Colway website Mr Nice recommended will do remoulds for £39. Assuming they are on a decent carcass, what are the pitfalls of the remoulds? I like the lower price and the environmental plusses, but I do lots of high speed motorway driving (the Michelins have done

24K in 6 months) so I don't want to risk blowouts or other horrors.

Any opinions?

Reply to
Tim Hobbs
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Tim Hobbs raised the following...

However, the Colway website Mr Nice recommended will do remoulds for £39. Assuming they are on a decent carcass, what are the pitfalls of the remoulds? I like the lower price and the environmental plusses, but I do lots of high speed motorway driving (the Michelins have done

24K in 6 months) so I don't want to risk blowouts or other horrors.

Any opinions?

The following snip from RoSPA web site

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"What is a remould tyre? A remould tyre is made from an old tyre. Old tyres which are not sound should never be used as components for remould tyres. The essential building block for a remould tyre is a used tyre whose tread is worn-out but whose carcass (basic structure) is sound. Preparation for remoulding involves stripping away the tread of the worn-out tyre. The final part of the process moulds a new tread onto the old carcass using a new rubber compound. "

"What problems are there with remould tyres? In the majority of cases remould tyres perform satisfactorily provided the manufacturer's guidance about maximum vehicle loadings and maximum speeds is followed. Overloading, sustained high speeds, and under or over-inflation all contribute to increased tyre wear and/or premature failure."

As you mention you do a lot of high speed motorway driving. For that reason alone I would not place my self or that of my passengers in jeopardy.

What's to say the cases are not substandard?

For the sake of about four hundred quid is it worth risking it?

Reply to
Simon Mills

Tim Hobbs composed the following;:

I like remoulds for mud-plugging and low-speed stuff. I would not trust them completely if I were hannering up and down motorways all day. When I did that I stuck to known brands and decent service. If you have a known decent tyre fitter, then stick with them, I'd say. Get the Colways for off-roading or round town etc .. ;)

My opinion only. :)

Reply to
Paul - xxx

I use remoulds on my land rover which puts out about as much horsepower as a hamster in a wheel, and never gets above 70 miles per hour. I will not put remoulds on my wifes saab which puts out about 200bhp and can hit three figure speeds before you notice.

I'm sure remoulds are perfectly safe within the speed and load restrictions the manufacturer states.

Regards. Mark.(AKA, Mr.Nice.)

Reply to
Mr.Nice.

On or around Wed, 09 Feb 2005 23:53:33 +0000, Tim Hobbs enlightened us thusly:

my experience of remoulds on the front of a FWD car is that they lasted about 5000 miles. Maybe the remoulds are better now...

The sierra4x4 has Nankangs on it, good and cheap, I found 'em. I forget the number but it's a 195/60 tyre and more "sporting" tread pattern.

oooer.

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and look at the bit about "tweel".

heh. Nankang's site is rather flashy.

Reply to
Austin Shackles

On or around Wed, 09 Feb 2005 23:53:33 +0000, Tim Hobbs enlightened us thusly:

wot size are they?

Reply to
Austin Shackles

Hi

11k and 24k seem rather poor figures for a modern well known brand and I would have been disapointed with less than double that. Perhaps a session on a four wheel tracking device could save some future cash ?

I changed the Pirellis on the Primera at 55k and bought a pair of Budget tyres which , so far, seem OK. Although I do a lot of motorway stuff I don't go in for the three figure speeds. I paid £85 to replace a nail damage Pirelli, V rated bla bla bla. and only 39 for the budget equivalent. there probably is a good reason for choosing the best if you are taking the tyre to its limits, but just because its got 140 mph on the clock .....

Best of Luck

Reply to
Uncle Geoff

We had a set of Remolds on Reggie, some my recall my Beige 3.5 V8 which we sold in 1999/2000.. i forget... Anyway , after they had done around 1500 miles on Reggie they Migrated to a new set of rims and Landied on Alfie where they have all live since bar one which became pourous and had to be replaced. When we got Alfie I recall he had 76 K miles on or there abouts, He's now on 103 K miles. Only the front Drivers side is showing signs of needing replacement soon (the next 12 months) as it's worn more on the inner edge... no doubt a camber and weights of the driver issue (Not that I'm fat, just that usually theres a driver in him when he's on the move 8o) ). Thats roughly 27000 miles for those not to hot on maths, a quarter of the vehicles milage.

They are Bronco AT retreads and cost me £50 a corner fitted and balanced.

I would point out our Motorway cruises tends to peak at 80mph it is a VM TD afterall.

They have had several off road excursions including 2 trips around Cannock chase, being AT's there capabilities werew to be respected. towed our v.big caravan up and down the country. Only time they left me stuck was towing the caravan across the soup at Gaydon last year, the caravan made for a pretty good ground anchor and to my relief there were several others who got stuck in the same place who weren't towing anything.

Despite this good service, I think I'd still aire on the side of caution if I had a vehicle capable of over 100mph which they were fitted to.

The other thing to point out being that 4x4 Tyres tend to have more tread to go at which is probably why I've got good milage from these.. Not that they are looking thin on top yet.

Lee D

Reply to
Lee_D

I don't know what you do to get 55K out of front tyres on a front drive car, but the only car that ever got in that ballpark for me was my Peugeot 205. Even that only did 35-40K on fronts.

A two ton front drive car that spends most of its day at 70-110mph is never going to get 55K out of very low profile, performance-biased tyres. Then again, a previous vehicle managed 8K on a pair of £280 rears, so I'm not too worried!

The Pirellis were garbage. My trusted tyre fitter told me so, and before looking at them told me they would be worn in a step pattern (rear of each block wearing more than the front of the block). He was absolutely right - that's why they were noisy and it's apparently due to relatively weak cross-binding allowing the blocks to twist. The wear pattern on both Pirellis and Michelins was completely even across the width, and the tracking has always shown up virtually bang on.

The Colways are V rated, so I'd be using them within their specification. The only question mark is whether Colway's QC procedures are good enough to ensure that only good quality carcasses are used. I check pressures weekly, so they never run underinflated.

Even so, I'd always be wondering...

Reply to
Tim Hobbs

225 x 45 R17

Basically a 17 inch rim with a thin coating of rubber on it!

Reply to
Tim Hobbs

On or around Thu, 10 Feb 2005 10:44:09 +0000, Tim Hobbs enlightened us thusly:

Nankang NS-1 or NS-2 look quite interesting, at about 55 quid inc the dreaded from this lot:

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?typ=R-106018&dsco=10 I've had lesser Nankangs on a fiarly powerful motor and found nowt wrong with 'em.

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gets you a list, if you pick "category 4", then you get the whole list starting from the cheap end... Bridgestone Potenza at the top of the list at about 134 quid a pop.

Reply to
Austin Shackles

Or

"What problems are there with new tyres?" < insert same answer but s/remould/new/ >

A non-answer from ROSPA IMHO.

This is the key. How do they check/test the cases before remoulding? Remoulds used to (talking 30+ years ago) have a terrible reputation but that is so long ago it can't really be taken to be valid anymore.

I'm in two minds about 'em, the vast majority of HGVs out there are running on remoulds... Does the ROSPA site have any real figures about failure rates of remoulds v new?

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

On or around Fri, 11 Feb 2005 09:40:58 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice" enlightened us thusly:

true, but there's still the point about what they're moulded onto. We'v all noted varied performance form different makes of tyre, and some of it is probably down to carcass stiffness etc. in addition to tread pattern and compound. A set of (e.g.) goodyears one would hope to have the same carcass construction, but a set of 4 remoulds, while you'd expect them to be the same PR and the same type (e.g/ steel belted, 4 PR) might have different carcasses with different characteristics. I can't see how Colway (or whoever) can select identical carcasses, since they'll vary from one tyre to another.

In the case of HGVs, I recall reading about this, the system seems to go:

new tyre re-groove remould re-groove

but it's all, in that example, on the SAME tyre. in other words, you buy a set of tyres, wear them down, get them cut, wear them down again, get 'em remoulded, etc etc.

Reply to
Austin Shackles

Visual and sometimes x-ray inspection, but AFAICT it's all a bit hit and miss really. The biggest problem comes with case damage that has let water into the steel cords, causing them to weaken and eventually fail letting the tyre go out of shape.

Now they've got better spin doctors and a flash marketing department the reputation is hostory, but has the reality changed?

Thay are, but remember that the larger the diameter, the less revolutions for a given speed, thus the less internal forces generated, so the less likely the tyre is to fail.

As an aside to this, one of the truck fleets we used to maintain moved from remoulds to new tyres for all 25 trucks. Cost of tyres went up about 250%, but tyre lifespan went up over 230%, tyre failures and consequent downtime dropped to virtually zero, and their accident rate dropped. Overall they claim to be saving significant amounts of money.

Reply to
EMB

My company does a lot of work in the tyre industry, and plant / HGV tyres are rather different to car tyres. For a start, they are much higher value and tend to be leased rather than purchased. RF tagging is becoming more common, and this allows operators to force the remould industry to give them back their own carcasses - they thus know the complete history of that carcass and can monitor performance much more easily.

It's very easy for Colway et al to know what carcass they are using - it's printed on the side of the originating tyre. It's impossible for their buyers to know though after the remoulding process. How (or if) they test the quality of the carcass is something I don't yet know.

Reply to
Tim Hobbs

And I bet the remoulders won't let on that their tyre X always uses brand Y or Z carcasses, if they do that is. Mind it could be very good marketing but I don't think they could use it directly without the branded tyre makers coming down on 'em hard somehow.

Yet? I await with interest. B-)

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Donno, thats why I'm askin'.

For those that like Michelin tyres Costco are doing 20% off "Buy any 4 from the Pilot, Energy, 4x4, or Commercial ranges" in the week commencing 28th Feb. Now I don't know what their normal prices are like and the voucher carefully avoids mentioning fitting/balancing costs.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

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