Part worn tyres - False economy or wise buy?

There is a growing trend for the purchase, hence the supply of part worn tyres in this country. Why is that?

Firstly it would be appropriate for me to explain what a part worn tyre is. A part worn tyre is a tyre that has been previously fitted and removed from another vehicle. It could have been removed for a number of reasons; the vehicle could have been scrapped and the tyres removed, another reason would be that the tyre has reached the legal tread depth limit in a country with a different limit to that of the UK. This is the most common source of part worn tyres. As an example the legal tread depth limit in Germany is 3mm (UK is 1.6mm), when the tyre is removed in Germany it will be transported to the UK and sold as a part worn tyre, with 1.4mm of 'useable' tread left.

Now I could approach this topic in one of 2 ways. The first being that part worn tyres are dangerous, damaged, past their 'best before date', or poorly fitted. However for a number of reasons I won't. Not all part worn tyres are bad and there are a number of suppliers who are very good at what they do. You could argue that the tyres on my car are part worn, and I would agree. I do however know the history and age of the tyres on my car.

What I will do is demonstrate that it is more cost effective to fit a brand new tyre than it is to fit a part worn. I have used a very common size; 195/65/15 and have used the following information:

SAVA Intensa HP - £58.96 fitted – 8.3mm of new tread less the 1.6mm legal limit leaves 6.7mm of useable tread.
Part worn tyre - £15 fitted – 3mm of ‘new’ tread less the 1.6mm legal limit leaves 1.4mm of useable tread.

From this information we can calculate that you would need 4.8 part worn tyres to match the amount of tread on a new tyre. At £15 per part worn, this means that it would cost £71.79 in part worn tyres to get the same amount of tread as a new tyre! This is for every tyre and it doesn’t include the inconvenience factor of return visits to the part worn dealer every time the tyre needs changing.

Mission accomplished! New tyres are cheaper than part worns, fact! I have used a mid range tyre, but you could actually use the same calculations and buy a premium brand tyre cheaper than a part worn. It's also worth noting that tyre performance drops of at around 3 mm. Braking distances increase, etc. If you use part worns you will never have a tyre performing at its best.

It’s your call, your money, your safety so it would be wrong of me to tell you not to purchase part worn tyres. What I would say is ‘do your research’ and carry out the checks as described above. The best option is always a new tyre that has been designed for your car, you will find the recommendation in the owners manual.

If you choose to fit part worn tyres please ensure that you check the following:

1. Check the tyre for any cuts or bulges. Both would suggest damage to the internal structure of the tyre.
2. Check the tread way around the whole circumference of the tyre. The minimum (i.e. 100% worn) tread depth a part worn tyre can be sold with is 2mm across the FULL width of the tread and around the whole circumference.
3. Make sure the size and speed rating of the replacement tyre are suitable for the vehicle. Cross axle sizes must be the same and all speed ratings should be adequate for the vehicle.
4. Ensure all puncture repairs are in accordance with the British Standard (BS AU 159)
5. If your tyre has the words 'direction', 'rotation', or 'outside' written on it, it must be fitted accordingly.
6. All part worn tyres must be labelled as such. They must have the words 'PART WORN' marked in capital letters. This must be permanent and legible. (I think this is to give other road users the chance to get out of the way! (Sorry, I said I wouldn't))

Some people will disagree with everything I have just said! But please leave a comment and we can explore your thoughts.

All the best
Stuart

Car crash repairs and Insurance

The dreaded car insurance quote arrived the other day, a year later, no claims and no discount! I remember when I first started driving, someone told me that my insurance would reduce significantly when I was 21. Guess what? Exactly, it didn't! Same story at 25 and again at 30. So I'm still waiting, hopefully when I get to 40 I'll get a big refund!

So why is is car insurance so expensive?

Inflation, uninsured drivers, 'no win, no fee' accident lawyers all contribute to the rising costs of car insurance. Now I don't profess to know all the details behind insurance costs and I'm sure the insurance companies are making a decent return for their shareholders, but I do know about cars and now thanks to an interesting seminar I went to last night I do know why they are so expensive to repair and how that effects your insurance price.

Euro NCAP crash test

The seminar was part of The Institute of the Motor Industry (The IMI) member association events and was hosted by a gentleman from The Vehicle Builders and Repairers Association (The VBRA). In all honesty I was a bit dubious about attending, I don't deal with crash repairs and it was a Friday night! That being said it was a really interesting presentation and I'm glad that I went. I thought that I would use my blog to share a few of the highlights.

You only need to take a look at the number of fatalities on the roads to see how vehicle safety has developed. In 2010 with 32 million vehicles on the road there were 1857 fatalities. In 1966 with approx 13 million vehicles there were 7985! A key factor in this reduction is the developments in vehicle technology and safety. You are much more likely to survive an accident now than ever before.

New cars are built with a passenger safety cell, this means the vehicle occupants have a much bigger degree of protection were they are sitting. This safety cell is made out of ultra high strength steel and is designed to offer maximum protection. Now if this cell becomes damaged it is very difficult to repair, the common practice being to replace rather than repair, this obviously increases the repair costs. The safety cell is underneath all the pretty body panels, these can be replaced and repainted, again at cost.

Outside of the safety cells, cars are designed to absorb impact. You may be aware of the term 'crumple zone', this means the certain parts of the car fold and distort to reduce the impact before it gets to the passenger cell. Again if this happens, its replace rather than repair.

Inside the car we have front airbags, side airbags, and seat belt tensioners, when these are activated they need to be replaced.

You will be surprised how easy it is to write a car off after a relatively minor crash. If you take a 2 year old£10k super mini with a current value of £6k and have a crash, the costs can quickly exceed the value of the car, this means that it is not financially viable to repair. This cost is then taken by the insurance company and they have to recover through increased premiums.

The presentation certainly raised my awareness of modern vehicle crash repairs and the amount of cost to carry them out.

Does it make my insurance quote cheaper? No, but it does make it easier to swallow. Given the choice, I would rather stick with the vehicles we have today than those we had in 1966.

What do you think? Let me know your thoughts and feel free to add them to the blog.

All the best
Stuart

Get a second opinion

If the doctor said he needed to chop your leg off and it will cost you £500, what would you do? Personally I would get a second opinion, so why is it so different when we take our cars to the garage?

Confused yet? (This one's actually electric)

If you already use a garage that you have built up a relationship of trust with, then there is no reason to read any further into this post. You are one of the lucky ones. I thank you however for reading my blog and I promise that I will write something more suitable for you soon.

There are some 30 million cars on the roads of the UK and all of them have a common requirement. Regardless of make, model or age, they all have a need for regular maintenance. Many motorists will make regular trips for tyres, routine servicing or maybe just to investigate that annoying rattle. Most will have a pleasant experience. There are however a number of motorists that do not have a great experience when it comes to car maintenance. A quick search of the Internet forums or review websites will show some pretty unhappy customers. The purpose of this short post is to give you a few tips when dealing with a garage to ensure you are one of the happy ones.

I have lost count of how many times someone has said to me “I took my car in for a service and it cost £xyz by the time they had finished”. It does make me a little cross when I hear this, no one has had anyone over a barrel (at least I hope not), and the whole truth is never fully understood or even explained.

I’m going to use a common example. Car goes in for a service (£200) and leaves after having the service, new brake pads, and 4 new tyres- Total bill £600. The numbers may be different for you but, I can assure you this is common scenario and the response from the vehicle owner is often the textbook example from above. If you have used an honest and trustworthy garage all of the additional work will have been required and you should have been informed before the remedial work took place. That being said I have made a short checklist below of things you should be doing or asking.

Brakes - A common source of unexpected bills

• ·         Check the vehicle before you send it in. Faults with lights, tyres, wipers and washers should not be a surprise, you should be checking these every week. On most modern vehicles even brake pads and discs can easily be seen through the wheel. This is the most common source of additional repair work found on a service.
• ·         Use a reputable garage. Get a ‘word of mouth’ recommendation from a friend. Be careful with Internet forums and review websites, they can be misleading and miss-representative. Even the garage approval schemes do not tell the full story. ‘Gut instinct’ will also give you a good clue, if the place is filthy dirty and in general need of some TLC, ask yourself “how will they treat my car”?
• ·         If you are advised of any additional work, ask questions; “Why does it need replacing”? “What is the manufacturer’s recommendation”? In the case of brake discs/pads, always ask for your measurements in comparison to the manufacturers recommendation. Just because a brake disc has a ‘lip’, does not mean it is worn out.
• ·         If you leave your car at the garage and authorise work over the phone, always ask them to retain the parts for you to check later.
• ·         If nothing else, if you are not sure, take it somewhere else for a second opinion!

This is obviously a short list and it would not be possible to cover every scenario, but if I could ask you to remember only two things, they would be:

Check it yourself first

 and

If you are in any doubt, get a second opinion

All the best

Stuart

Fuel Saving - Can you do it?

I love driving! I do a lot of it and think of it as one of the greatest gifts of freedom you can give to a human being. I have driving licences for Car (B), Motorcycle (A), Lorry (C+E) and Tracked (H), I can remember the feeling I had when I passed each of the driving tests, and I also remember the sheer disappointment when I failed my car & motorcycle test first time around! The car test involved a ‘racing line’ through a roundabout which the instructor did not think was suitable during a driving test. The motorcycle test involved a ‘U’ turn in the narrowest road in Wellingborough; I executed a ‘3 point turn’ manoeuvre, which again the instructor didn’t think was suitable. Anyway, an exam is an exam and I failed them. I took my car test 2 days later and passed and had to wait 6 weeks before I could get another motorcycle test. The next test was in Bedford and again I had to complete the ‘U’ turn, this time I can only use the word ‘ runway’ to describe the width of the road to complete the exercise! Needless to say I passed this one with flying colours.

Like I said, I love driving, I drive on average 700 miles a week, mostly motorway, but I can change the route and go cross country. I don’t drive particularly fast or aggressively, but I do like to make good progress (remember this from your driving test?) and maintain a good speed. Maintaining a good speed on the twisty B roads on the way home is particularly enjoyable. I usually abandon the motorway 2 or 3 times a week in favour of the B roads.

“Wonderful”, I hear you say, “what’s this got to do with the price of bread”? Well, I shall tell you. Fuel! Petrol, diesel, benzine, gas, motion potion, whatever you want to call it, it’s expensive, and I’m getting a little tired of paying for it! Last week I decided to start doing something about it, if you follow me on twitter @CarrStuart or #ecostu you will have been able to follow my progress. If you didn’t, no problem, I’ll summarise here.

Vehicle of choice – 2009 Audi A3, 2.0Tdi (140hp), 70,000 miles. Goodyear Efficient Grip tyres and red paint (although I don’t think that’s relevant).

Now, I did an advanced driving course in 1998 so I dug deep into the ‘grey matter’ and tried to recall what I was taught. I must have remembered some of it because I saved some cash at the end of the week, more of that later. One of the key parts of the course was to drive defensively, in my mind this means reading the road, planning well ahead and thinking what other road users are doing or about to do. As the week progressed I realised that other road users were causing me to use a lot of fuel. I found that if I used the offside lane on the motorway, the fast one, I got sucked into keeping up with the traffic. What I mean is that I mirrored what everyone else did in that lane. I began to notice a pattern; upwards of 70mph (indicated, to allow for speedo error), down to 60, up to 70+, back down to 60. This is exactly the type of driving I was trying to avoid. Accelerating then slowing down does not produce great fuel returns. So very quickly I stopped using the ‘fast’ lane. “Drive on the left” was the first thing that my driving instructor said to me, so that’s what I started to do. It amazes me how many people do not use the nearside lane, the slow one; actually the speed limit is the same in this lane as the rest of the motorway, lane hoggers take note!

This was the place to be, it allowed me to plan well ahead and make the best use of the road. Using the tips below, I found I could make good progress and maintain a constant speed, when I needed to overtake I left plenty of time and made the best use of all lanes to get past without altering speed.

Like I said the majority of driving is on the motorway and I did sacrifice my B road journeys this week. I also used the train one day, this was great but the short trip to the train station only returned 46.5mpg. I also had some traffic jams to contend with, which didn’t help. Over the whole week I managed to achieve the following results:

Distance - 621 Miles

Average Speed - 46 mph

Average fuel consumption - 57mpg

I compared this with my normal speed and mpg (46 mph & 48mpg) , and I managed to get an additional 9mpg over the week by driving carefully without sacrificing any average speed. In money terms I saved almost £13 and completed my journeys in the same time, this would translate into an annual saving (45 working weeks) of £580. RESULT!

Can I keep it up? I must admit, it was more of a challenge during the first week and something to keep me occupied. I will try to keep it up, but I fear the novelty will wear off. The motorway scenario was very easy to achieve but I do miss the country road trip on the way home. This is guaranteed to use more fuel, but I shall definitely make a compromise so I still get to enjoy the pleasures of driving.

My top tips for efficient driving:

Vehicle:
1. Tyres – Make sure they are inflated to the correct pressure. Check wheel alignment is correct.
2. Engine – Make sure engine oil is at the correct level.
3. AirCon – Try not to use it! If you have climate control, make sure it doesn’t come on automatically.
4. Reduce drag – Get that roof box, and rails off. Keep the windows closed on the fast roads too.

Driving style:
1. Maintain a constant speed where possible.
2. Avoid harsh acceleration.
3. Use the engines torque, change gear lower down the rev range.
4. Plan well ahead when manoeuvring.
5. Don’t coast in neutral; you will use more fuel than if it were in gear.
6. Use the gradients to help you. Don’t accelerate so hard down hills and plan in advance to save you accelerating up them.

I would advise that you give it go, without too much effort you should be able to save a bit of cash (and do a tiny bit to reduce your carbon footprint).

All the best

Stuart

Automotive Three Letter Acronyms

What is it with TLA’s? TLA is the Three Letter Acronym for Three Letter Acronym!! Confused yet? I am!

I was driving to the office earlier this week and due to an accident, or animal on the road or some other reason the Highways agency felt the need to close the motorway! On any other occasion this would have really annoyed me, but today the sun was shining and I had left plenty of time for the journey, so I felt quite relaxed. However, the main reason I was happy to park up in the centre lane of the motorway was the fact I was in my new car and I now had the perfect opportunity to read the owners manual! The typical male approach with manuals is to place it in the ‘man draw’ and read it only as a last resort. I quite enjoy reading manuals; I like to have some sort of idea of how things work, before I hurtle down the road at 70mph!

On reading said manual it soon became apparent that I would need a second manual to help me with the acronyms! Now I like to think I’m a technical guy and have a good knowledge of a motor car, after all I have been involved in the motor industry for 15 years, but some of the acronyms left me searching for the glossary.

I thought I would use this column to share with you the definitions of the common and the not so common systems we find on our vehicles today.

ABS- Anti-lock Braking System. Under heavy braking in an emergency situation this system prevents the wheels from skidding

EDL- Electronic Differential Lock. This system detects wheel spin; it brakes the spinning wheel and directs power to another wheel.

ASR – Traction Control System (I know the letters don’t work! I guess it would be ‘Anti Spin Regulation). Similar to EDL but this system reduces engine power to reduce wheel spin

ESP- Electronic Stabilisation Programme. This system controls the ABS, EDL and ASR to provide increased stability and road holding of a vehicle.

ACC- Adaptive Cruise Control. This system is an ‘intelligent cruise control system’. It uses sensors in the front bumper that scan the road ahead. When activated the ACC will control the vehicle speed and adjust if necessary, for example the car ahead on a motorway begins to slow down. Interestingly, the manual for the system comes with many warnings attached! Mostly reminding you that the driver is in ultimate control of the system!

SRS- Supplemental Restraint System. Basically the airbags, with the seat belts being the primary method of restraint

EML- Engine Management Light. Also known as a Malfunction Indicator Lamp (MIL), this alerts the driver to a fault with the engine management system

DCP- Dynamic gear Control Program. This system controls the automatic gearbox and monitors your driving style. When your in a rush the gearbox doesn’t change until much higher in the rev range. If you’re on a Sunday drive, the gearbox changes much sooner giving maximum fuel efficiency.

TPMS- Tyre Pressure Monitoring System. Lastly not a TLA but an FLA! This system does exactly what the name suggests, it monitors tyre pressure and displays the readings on the dashboard. All systems will alert the driver if the pressure drops below a preset threshold.  All new vehicle platforms from January 2012 will have to be fitted with a TPMS. 

All in, quite a list of equipment, and if the truth be told this is only some of the systems that are available today. You can look at these systems in one of 2 ways. Firstly; “Just another thing to go wrong” or secondly; the by product of vehicle evolution, whereby many systems are designed to make vehicles safer and more environmentally friendly.

I prefer the latter; as long as these systems are maintained and serviced in the correct manner, they will provide years of trouble free motoring. When you choose a service provider make sure they follow the service schedule correctly and used approved parts. Choose a service provider you can be sure will service your vehicle to the manufacturer’s standards.

If you are unsure of any of the systems on your vehicle, contact your local repair centre for advice, or give me a call, I’m still sat on the M6!