Hi Stefanut,

This question is very much ‘how long is a piece of string?’. Tyres come in various different compounds (the softness or hardness of the rubber), while different driving styles will wear out the same make of tyres at different rates – so if a car was owned by someone who likes to corner fast compared to someone who just cruises up and down motorways, tyre wear will be advanced in the former. Furthermore, front tyres tend to wear more than rears, as they do the steering, although this isn’t entirely true of very powerful rear-wheel-drive cars.

Basically, every tyre, no matter its age or make, should have a set of wear markers moulded into the grooves of the tread; these show up when the tyre is getting badly worn. The minimum legal depth of tread on tyres in Ireland is 1.6mm across the width of the wheel, so if it’s near-bald in places, the tyre is shot; and if you see any cracking in the tyres’ sidewalls, or bulging ‘egg-like’ blisters, the tyres will need replacing immediately too.