Tyre centres obliged to replace bad tyres?

cantdecide

Sorry if this has been asked before.

Firstly, this is really NOT my car. All my tyres are 100% on all my vehicles, as they always are.

My friend asked me if he gets one of those €20 inspections from Advance pitstop, if they find an unevenly worn tyre, will Advance be obliged to replace it?

He rarely uses the car and is in the process of possibly scrapping it and replacing it. He wants to have the inspection just to help him make his decision. I've been preaching at him about maintaining his car, I just want to be able to tell him with some authority what the law says on the matter.

No they don't have the authority.

seamus

The old, "I can't let you drive it out of here like that" excuse is nonsense. Provided that the garage have pointed out any flaws and potential problems to you (even if they caused them), then it's your decision whether to drive the car or not.

_Conrad_

So is this friend trying to decide whether or not to scrap a car based on tyres, or trying to somehow get a free/cheap tyre from advance pitstop?

In my opinion either of those options would be pretty stupid!

No tyre fitting business or garage has to replace anything, they can tell you about it, and in many cases will exaggerate to make you pay them for more stuff that you don't really need, but there's no all powerful rule that will make them have to replace something cheap or for free.

cantdecide

Basically, all he wants cheap free is an assessment of his car. If they note he needs a tyre, he wants to be free to drive the car away without changing it because the car is probably not long for this world anyway.

cjt156

Surely uneven wear, low tread depth, perished, cracked or bulging sidewalls are easy to spot without having some teenager in ill-fitting overalls do it for twenty quid?

_Conrad_

cantdecide wrote: »

Basically, all he wants cheap free is an assessment of his car. If they note he needs a tyre, he wants to be free to drive the car away without changing it because the car is probably not long for this world anyway.

ah jaysus that's even worse.... of course he can drive away.... Thinking advance pitstop could force someone to get a new tyre is even more crazy than thinking they'd have to replace it for free or for 20 euro, which is what it seemed like he thought.

Whatever's wrong with the car, they'll tell him it's worse, usually a lot worse, it's how they roll

biko

Go with the free Advance Pre NCT and after say "I'll think about it" and drive away with the report.
http://www.advancepitstop.com/car-service/national-car-test-nct.119.html

coylemj

Based on the way those places treat women I'm not surprised that that myth persists - if a woman goes into one of those places with a puncture there is a 99% probability that they will point out some kind of a 'bulge' or 'tear' in the wall or simply that the tyre is below the legal limit and they more or less pretend that they have some kind of legal right to force the customer to replace the tyre.

I went to two of those places recently, in both cases they told me the tyre I wanted examined was below the limit. When I asked them to state the legal definition of what was the minimum tread they couldn't. When I asked them to actually measure the depth they didn't have a tread depth gauge, needless to say I left without giving them any business.

Most of them are complete chancers and the big chains are the worst, they are under pressure from head office to sell, sell, sell so all they care about is getting you to buy new tyres.

500sel

cjt156 wrote: »

Surely uneven wear, low tread depth, perished, cracked or bulging sidewalls are easy to spot without having some teenager in ill-fitting overalls do it for twenty quid?

:D I like it:D:D

Del2005

cantdecide wrote: »

Basically, all he wants cheap free is an assessment of his car. If they note he needs a tyre, he wants to be free to drive the car away without changing it because the car is probably not long for this world anyway.

If he has a bad tyre replace it with the spare.

But that leads to another question. Why would someone knowingly drive on a dangerous tyre? Even if he's only around the corner he could still be involved in an accident and if it's investigated, for any reason, and it's shown they had bald tyres then they are in trouble.

I can almost guarantee that any checks he gets done for free will mean he scraps the car. If he pays a reliable indy or gets it NCT'd he'd get a more accurate report.