New EU tyre rule: worn tyres to have same wet braking as new

[FROSTYBALLS]

https://www.evo.co.uk/news/206983/new-eu-tyre-rules-could-save-motorists-ps6-billion-in-tyre-replacement-costs

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/consumer-news/363794/new-eu-worn-tyre-rules-could-save-400m-tyres-and-ps59-billion-year#:~:text=Thanks to the adoption of,they do when brand new.

[Paul john]

Manufacturers will have to take a layered approach to tyre manufacture as heat (tyre generated) changes the fundamental characteristics of the compound which is why we get “tyre fade”.

[Cyker]

The people that proposed this should be sacked from their positions and sent back to school because they are clearly demonstrating they do not have the skills, knowledge or ability to be in that post - It is physically impossible for a tyre at 1.6mm to have the same level of grip and water clearance as one that has 8+mm of tread depth. Even Michelin, who try the hardest to engineer their tyres to maintain performance down to low tread depths, rapidly lose performance past the 3mm mark.

How are these idiots expecting it to be achieved? Do they think if they make enough laws it will trump the laws of physics themselves!?

It really irritates me this "Nothing is impossible! (for those who don't have to do it themselves)" attitude is so pervasive in Politioland - It's things like that that caused Dieselgate and the rapidly cratering attempt to make everyone pivot to EVs. They need to come down from their ivory towers and align laws with the current state of technology, not some imaginary one!

 

[Paul john]

14 minutes ago, Cyker said:

The people that proposed this should be sacked from their positions and sent back to school because they are clearly demonstrating they do not have the skills, knowledge or ability to be in that post - It is physically impossible for a tyre at 1.6mm to have the same level of grip and water clearance as one that has 8+mm of tread depth. Even Michelin, who try the hardest to engineer their tyres to maintain performance down to low tread depths, rapidly lose performance past the 3mm mark.

How are these idiots expecting it to be achieved? Do they think if they make enough laws it will trump the laws of physics themselves!?

It really irritates me this "Nothing is impossible! (for those who don't have to do it themselves)" attitude is so pervasive in Politioland - It's things like that that caused Dieselgate and the rapidly cratering attempt to make everyone pivot to EVs. They need to come down from their ivory towers and align laws with the current state of technology, not some imaginary one!

 

Agreed

[Benzowner]

18 hours ago, Cyker said:

The people that proposed this should be sacked from their positions and sent back to school because they are clearly demonstrating they do not have the skills, knowledge or ability to be in that post - It is physically impossible for a tyre at 1.6mm to have the same level of grip and water clearance as one that has 8+mm of tread depth. Even Michelin, who try the hardest to engineer their tyres to maintain performance down to low tread depths, rapidly lose performance past the 3mm mark.

How are these idiots expecting it to be achieved? Do they think if they make enough laws it will trump the laws of physics themselves!?

It really irritates me this "Nothing is impossible! (for those who don't have to do it themselves)" attitude is so pervasive in Politioland - It's things like that that caused Dieselgate and the rapidly cratering attempt to make everyone pivot to EVs. They need to come down from their ivory towers and align laws with the current state of technology, not some imaginary one!

 

Not so sure, they are only looking at braking distances from 50 -12mph on 1mm of water, not the overall performance of the tyre, which as you quite rightly say would diminish rapidly below 3mm. I think that could be achieved but wouldn't fancy 1.6mm on a wet track day 😂

[Cyker]

Ahh, so the compliance will come, not from improvements in tech or safety, but changing of the definitions, like pretty much everything else politically motivated these days. Should have seen that coming...

 

[Haliotis]

The EU idiots who came up with this tyre rule are demanding a quality that is physically impossible.  On wet roads, a tyre has to dispel huge amounts of water in order to remain gripped to the road.  This water is dispersed by being ejected through the tread pattern.  As the tread depth wears down, so does the volume of water that the treads can hold at any one time. So a build up of water developes which results in aquaplaning.

Increasing tread grooves width might help (a little!), but would be at the expense of the amount of rubber in contact with the road.

The legal limit of 1.6mm minimum tread depth is ridiculous - aquaplaning in heavy rain is a possibility at this low depth of tread.  For years I have discarded my tyres at 3mm tread depth, based on proven trials by the premium tyre companies.

Yes, in theory this costs me money.  But I value the safety of myself and others before scrimping on a few quid.  A tyre depot manager once pointed out that I could be losing money unnecessarily, but also said that he could not fault my reasoning.  

[Mike2222]

This new regulation appears to be suggesting the tyres will simply be required to meet "minimum standards" for wet braking at 1.6mm, however it appears to be remarkably difficult to establish what this actually means. 

 

I've tried to clarify this with some brief Internet searching, and as best as I can tell, it relates in some way to 'UN Regulation 117', but that itself is extremely vague, as one expects from most politico-babble:

"The wet grip performance will be based on a procedure that compares either peak brake force coefficient ("pbfc") or mean fully developed deceleration ("mfdd") against values achieved by a standard reference test tyre (SRTT). The relative performance shall be indicated by a wet grip index (G). For Class C1 tyres, tested in accordance with either procedure given in Annex 5 to this Regulation, the tyre shall meet the following requirements:

Snow tyre with a speed symbol ("Q" or below excluding "H") indicating a maximum permissible speed not greater than 160 km/h  Wet grip index (G) ≥  0.9

Snow tyre with a speed symbol ("R" and above, including "H") indicating a maximum permissible speed greater than 160 km/h ≥  1.0

Normal (road type) tyre ≥  1.1"

[Mike2222]

So this is possibly a meaningless new EU regulation, as it will be required to relate to a (mystetiously unspecified) reference tyre anyway, and one assumes a reference tyre at 1.6mm....? 

 

I also came across references to this newly ratified EU regulation at least as far back at 2019, so one imagines there's been at least 3yrs of intensive (and fully comped/expensed lunch/dinner) meetings... Worth noting the wording from 2019 eu press release is nigh on identical the the 2024 one, so I'm sure there was intense deliberations as to when to use a comma rather than a semicolon... Many bottles of Château Lafite 1960 bravely laid down their lives in the pursuit of grammatical excellence...

[Cyker]

Ugh this sounds increasingly like the kind of just-for-the-sake-of-it bureaucratic nonsense that I despise

 

1 hour ago, Haliotis said:

The legal limit of 1.6mm minimum tread depth is ridiculous - aquaplaning in heavy rain is a possibility at this low depth of tread.  For years I have discarded my tyres at 3mm tread depth, based on proven trials by the premium tyre companies.

I tend to change around 3mm as well at most times of the year; Only exception is summer, as I've found as I get closer to 1.6 limit the dry grip and lateral stability of the tyre weirdly increases as the wet performance drops, so I do tend to run it down lower than normal if it looks like there will be a lot of hot dry days ahead  

(It also gives me more time to hunt for a source of cheap premium tyres! I really miss when I first joined this forum and was only paying £35 a tyre on my Mk1!  )

 

[Flatcoat]

And my friends wonder why I voted for Brexit and complain about the EU staff gravy train, rail against group think technocrat legislators who have no concept of unintended consequencies. 

[Primus1]

Perhaps if we were still part of the EU, we would have been able to have our say in this new regulation..

[koji]

I've suffered many stupid changes in well-stablished standards in the railway sector, and I can tell you the EU burocrats are impossible to withstand.

As Cyker says, they live on "their ivory towers", and for them, creating unneccesary standards is a way of living.

Meanwhile, how many factories have closed their facilities in Europe?

[AndrueC]

14 hours ago, Flatcoat said:

And my friends wonder why I voted for Brexit and complain about the EU staff gravy train, rail against group think technocrat legislators who have no concept of unintended consequencies. 

If we were still a member of the EU we would be in a position to oppose the idea rather than as now having no say in the matter.

On the other hand it sounds like a laudable attempt to improve road safety and reduce wastage. Seems to me like we should be thanking the EU for their efforts in improving our lives.

[DavidinDerbyshire]

1 hour ago, Primus1 said:

Perhaps if we were still part of the EU, we would have been able to have our say in this new regulation..

Much of the problem…and much hyped by the media, was the fact that we DID NOT have our say, largely due to the quality of our MEPs such as Farage, and chose to be obstructive rather than constructive.   Europe was ours for the taking, figuratively speaking, and we blew it. 

[AndyN01]

Shall we bow down to "Scotty" in Star Trek - “I canna' change the laws of physics.”

Just more drivel from folks that don't actually do the job or understand the principles/engineering/physics that apply.

I wonder who's going to make "loads of money" from this - find them (they may be well hidden) and I'll bet you find who's driving (no pun intended) this.

[Haliotis]

49 minutes ago, AndrueC said:

 

On the other hand it sounds like a laudable attempt to improve road safety and reduce wastage. Seems to me like we should be thanking the EU for their efforts in improving our lives.

But it will not improve road safety - no amount of rubber compound development can change the fact that it is the depth of tread and the pattern that disperses the water and keeps the tyre in firm contact with the road.

What incentives will the EU parliament use to push the tyre manufacturers into working on this ruling?  Threat of penalties for failure to deliver? - possibly resulting in false declaration of worn tyre performance, and another scandal in the automotive industry.

When it comes to road safety and technological developments in the motor industry, there is no room for blustering idiots with no engineering qualifications setting out impossible terms for the manufacturers to meet.

[Primus1]

1 hour ago, DavidinDerbyshire said:

Much of the problem…and much hyped by the media, was the fact that we DID NOT have our say, largely due to the quality of our MEPs such as Farage, and chose to be obstructive rather than constructive.   Europe was ours for the taking, figuratively speaking, and we blew it. 

I wasn’t talking about our MEP,s, we were part of the lawmaking process whilst in the EU, with our own contingency of barristers,lawyers ect , we then had some say in future laws that may either, benefit the uk, or amending as required, since brexit we have become law takers not law makers..

[Haliotis]

We did not have much say when we were in the EU because, under EU law, the vote was based on the majority across all the EU countries.

[Cyker]

Well, that is how voting work, yes  

But you're forgetting the nuclear option all members have - The Veto.