I’m not proud to admit it, but that is pretty close to how my tires were last week. I finally swapped them out, but even with my employee discount i was looking at almost $700 for a set of four. Tires are expensive, and you often dont realize how bad they have gotten until it is too late. Even finding used tires is difficult these days.
That being said, going from exposed wires to fresh tires is amazing. I got in my car and immediately noticed i was sitting 3 inches higher, and it’s wonderful driving a car that actually grips the road instead of just sitting on top of them.
How did you passed the inspection with these tires?! or is it damaged within one year?
In the US most states don’t care in California (where I live) as long as it has a cat and passes emissions your good
I only just got the car 6 months ago, but Ohio doesn’t have annual inspections
I get used tires for around $30-$40 per tire. Between $150 and $200 gets a full set with installation. They last me a few years from there, driving around 8,000 miles per year. They don’t match, but I don’t care.
700$!? Where are you located that tires are this expensive? Here in Austria they are between 40€-80€ per 1 tire.
A new set of 4 tires plus alignment for my compact crossover is about $900-930 in the US.
I paid $700 2 years ago for tires for my SUV. SUV tires are a bit more expensive - but they’re still not cheap for sedans. I’m in the USA.
Lol. Why pay extra for an SUV? It’s like throwing money away. You can easily get sedan tires under $100.
I had a motorcycle shop tell me they were saving my tires because they’d never seen anything so overcooked. What can I say, I could barely afford the bike. It isn’t running now because I can’t afford to fix it. This economy is fucking terrible.
Racing slicks at home:
Isn’t this pretty much optimal on dry surfaces? The patterns in the tires are for draining away water, and nothing else. I mean, look at F1 tires for dry roads.
But the tiniest splash of water will send you on a rotational journy into what’s straight ahead.
And those tires are wet in the picture, so it’s amazing they’re still alive.
On a dry surface these have more grip but the belts are exposed and any debris wouldn’t bit be absorbed by the tread so I’m guessing not optimal for dry surface but very dangerous.
Some racers pay big money for “Slicks” like these.
Tires are at their best when I can see my reflection in them, right?
I didn’t know a tire could be so smooth it casts a reflection. This must the maximum smoothnes possible.
That is quite specular.
You’re sliding all the way to god on those bad boys
Drive a little more and you’ll have METAL tires which are the BEST!
Trains have metal wheels and are efficient. You can also be efficient by having metal tires on your car. You’re welcome, FuckCars.
Once that layer is worn down, the extra grip metal braid will be exposed, and the car will have super traction.
One more coat of WD-40 should do it.
Does police or yearly car inspection prior to registration not check for these? Here we need to have winter set and summer set of tires, plus that all gets checked regularly and you can’t register your car if it doesn’t pass technical exam.
Most everywhere here in the States has stopped doing any form of yearly vehicle examination, and the police in most places won’t pull you over for anything relating to vehicle issues unless it’s either seriously egregious or they have nothing better to do (sometimes not even then, like my local PD, who has been doing effectively nothing for the past 3 years ever since a police reform law was talked about.)
Most everywhere here in the States has stopped doing any form of yearly vehicle examination
Is this true? We have annual inspections in Pennsylvania.
It is. Only 15 states have a periodic inspection.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_inspection_in_the_United_States
Kentucky is laughable. It’s literally only “inspected” if you bought the car from out of state, and the inspection was $15, and a sheriff comes out tells you to step on the brakes and turn your headlights and emergency lights on. You need 1 working headlight, any one working tail light, (yes you’ll pass with just that tiny one in the center of your rear window,) and any two indicator lights to pass. The guy that did mine kicked my tires and said, “yep, it’s a car.”
For $15? I’d expect a little dance or something as well, that doesn’t seem like a good value for your money.
Yeah but who is a poorly maintained car gonna kill besides its occupants in a state like KY. Hell even emissions in a state that sparse. Juice ain’t worth the squeeze.
Here in Maryland, my car, that I bought new in 1999, has technically never needed a safety inspection. Emissions every two years, but no safety. Isn’t that a fun thought? If I were to sell it, it would need to be inspected then (and it’s a pretty thorough inspection), but otherwise…nah.
I keep it in better condition and would never let the tires get to this point. A few months ago, I replaced a set of tires because they had aged out, and even that was longer than I usually like to keep them. But not everyone has the money or inclination (or insanity) to keep a car that old in good condition.
But, statistically, there’s little evidence that safety inspections reduce crashes which kind of makes you wonder whether it’s really worth it. It’s one of those things that seems logical, but the statistics may not bear that out. At most, it’s only a small improvement, not a drastic difference.
I haven’t had an inspection in over twenty years.
We have emission checks for newly titled cars (purchase/transfer) in Georgia and Kansas. Nothing else.
Oh wow. I could understand them not caring if only your own life was at stake, but it’s not. Here we had people try to go around the inspection process, but now all the places that do these inspections (privately owned by the way) have to have live camera feeds of the vehicle from different angles and submit photos and graphs of the vehicle status before being able to issue a sticker.
And here I am complaining about someone’s light not being tuned properly while people drive with this kind of tires.
Probably living paycheck to paycheck or on the tail end of a delivery driver career as you find out that car maintenance is not free.
Not an excuse if other people can lose lives. There are used tires, cheaper tires, public transport, car pooling, etc.
One person’s unacceptable excuse is another’s meager existence. I’m not saying it’s right, just calling out how it gets there.
Doo-doo-doo doo doo doo-doooooooo
I worked in an arcade in the 90s which had that machine.
I can hear that music in my dreams.
They’re slicks, just like race cars use! That must mean they’re super grippy, right?
Yes. There’s more rubber touching the road, therefore more grip.
^/s
Yes, until it rains.
TBH, that’s not a bad wear pattern, aside from being as bald a cue ball. The alignment, balance, and inflation are all pretty good, the tire is just completely shot. Most of the time you’ll see pretty bad wear patterns on tires that are allowed to go that far, because people that can’t afford tires usually can’t afford alignments either.
They must be somewhere that doesn’t salt and maintains its roads.
Does such a mystical place exist?
Probably somewhere that doesn’t snow or freeze over, and thus has reasonable maintenance costs. It’s mainly ice that breaks up the roads, after all. Normal wear and tear will do it too, of course, but water freezing and expanding in the cracks makes the problem exponentially worse every time.
It’s time for a tire regroove! Tire shops will hate you.
