New EU worn tyre rules could save 400m tyres and £5.9 billion a year

Drivers in the EU can now buy tyres knowing they’ll meet regulatory minimum performance standards for wet weather braking, even when worn to the minimum legal tread depth. 

Thanks to the adoption of a new regulation in the EU (R117-04), tyres sold across the channel and beyond must be tested to ensure they’ll meet the same minimum wet weather braking requirement when worn down to the lawful minimum tread of 1.6mm, as they do when brand new. Previously, the regulations only stipulated minimum braking performance when tyres were new, and although there’s no sign as yet of the authorities mandating compliance with the new standard here, UK drivers will reap the benefit as manufacturers supply standardised products across all markets.

The new measure has not been implemented solely to improve safety though, but also because the EU wants to cut down on the environmental toll of tyres being scrapped or recycled prematurely. It believes that if consumers have more faith in their tyres’ performance at lower tread depths, they’ll be less inclined to scrap them early to buy new rubber.

Currently, according to estimates from tyre maker Michelin, 50 per cent of car tyres are removed and replaced before they’ve reached a residual tread depth of 3mm. This is still well above the legal minimum - which at 1.6mm is the same here in the UK as in Europe. Michelin says the application of the new regulation has the potential to reduce tyre consumption across Europe by a whopping 128 million units, with a commensurate drop in CO2 emissions amounting to 6.6 million metric tonnes.

If the measure was implemented globally, says Michelin, the numbers would be even more staggering - there’d be 400 million fewer tyres fitted annually, with a CO2 reduction of 35 million metric tonnes. That’s equivalent to six-months CO2 emissions from the city of New York, we’re told.

We’ve yet to see whether the increased performance requirement will mean an increase in cost for consumers, but an Ernst & Young report from May 2017 when the EU was mulling over the changes suggested that keeping tyres longer would potentially save consumers 7 billion euros (£5.9bn) annually.

We asked the Department for Transport for an update on the UK’s position in relation to making the new regulation mandatory here. A spokesperson told us that a decision on whether to mandate UN R117-04 is yet to be made, even though British officials were involved in drawing up the relevant United Nations regulations that have now been adopted by the EU.

“As they [the regulations] apply after the 31 December 2020 they were not retained and so meeting those requirements is currently optional for vehicles sold in Great Britain,” we were told. “Currently tyres are obliged to meet UN R117-02, however tyres meeting the latest R117-04 standards are also accepted.”

That said, anyone buying tyres in the UK with EU tyre labels should get the benefit of the new regulation anyway, as long as the four-digit age code on the tyre shows it is newly manufactured.

Getting EU labels is far from guaranteed, however, as there’s a post-Brexit UK label applied to tyres in many cases. Even so, new tyres sold in the UK from major manufacturers are unlikely to differ from the new EU spec, even if they have latest - albeit out of date - British labels.

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