There is no way to answer how long a tyre should last.
It depends on the brand and tread, where and how long you’re on the road, constant or hard breaking and even the climate where you live can factor into the life of your tyres. At Express Lube we recommend tyres should be changed every 6 years while also encouraging good care and maintenance of your tyres with regular check-ups, wheel alignments and tyre rotation.
What happens to old tyres?
Some tyres that are still in good condition are re-tread and sold. In the past, old tyres were used as landfill or worse burned, releasing toxic chemicals polluting the air and harming the environment. Tyres now have a new lease on life and what was once an environmental hazard has become a recycling success story, we have started to become savvier with reusing old tyres and they can be found in trees used as swings, around the backyard as flower pots and are even mulched down and used to line children’s playgrounds in schools and parks to provide kids with a soft, almost springy landing.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates there are over 110 different products made from the material that comes from recycled tyres.
A market leader within the Australian Tyre Recycling Industry, Tyrecycle makes use of old tyres, grinding them down to rubber granules they are blended with polyurethane and painted to produce running surfaces or rolled into insulation and installed in buildings and apartments to reduce noise. The recycled rubber can also be useful for wet areas as non-slip mats, walkways, boat decks and strips applied to the edges of stairs to provide grip.
If you see signs of uneven wear in your tyre tread, rocks, nails or debris and notice consistent changes in tyre pressure, it might be time to seek help from the professionals. Here at Express Lube we know good tyres provide optimum performance and safety on the roads, we can fit, balance and even dispose of your old tyres so they too can be reused or recycled.
