Why did my new vehicle come with old tyres?
QUESTION
Hi John,
I know your channel mainly concentrates on matters relating to cars, however, it seems the practice of putting old tyres on brand new caravans is not covered by any legislation or ruling, although I don't know how to check this for each state.
This practice would not be tolerated within the car industry and would be covered by appropriate legislation if it were to be found out, yet for us caravanners, the shafters and dodgy operators can get away with it.
Perhaps this issue, while involving caravans and not cars could be considered for a YouTube clip on your channel as much of your content includes great information for towing vans and trailers. As your existing content covers areas involving suitable towing vehicles, suspension upgrades, GCM & GVM upgrades etc, I feel your audience would be well served to learn about such abhorrent practices as described and be extra vigilant if taking delivery of a new van by checking all relevant details and dates.
My van was ordered in February 2018 and delivered in late July 2018, yet the tyres fitted to the van were made in the 47th week of 2015, clearly some 2 3/4 years old prior to me collecting the van. The tyres, General "Grabber" (245/75/R16), have performed quite well and enabled my wife and I to travel around Australia between Sept 2018 and November 2019, traveling about 38,000 with no issues. I opted to pay for the upmarket model of tyre from the base range and paid an additional $300 for five tyres. The depth of tread remaining varies between 7mm to 8mm except on the spare which has never been used.
Although the company that manufacturers the van have been incredible with their warranty and after sales support, the same may not be said about the chassis maker who seems to want to flick pass this issue aside. I asked for them to contact me which they did yesterday and suggested they need to contact their tyre suppliers to see what sort of compensation they are prepared to offer.
As I believe I have still got 40,000 to 45,000 kms of usable tread left on these tyres and have been denied a period of 2 3/4 years in which to use them before they were required to be replaced, a compensation amount of about 50% of the cost of replacement tyres, balance and wheel alignment is reasonable. The chassis manufacturer said he thought that was never going to happen but would discuss the issue with the tyre supplier.
I will see what their supplier suggests would be reasonable but if they don't wish to play ball, can you indicate whether such a segment could be hosted on your channel?
I have included photos of the tyres, including sizes and dates.
Many thanks in advance and I look forward to hearing from you shortly.
Kind regards,
Greg
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ANSWER
Greg,
I hear you - in theory.
In fact, your tyres were just over 2.5 years old when you got them. (Manufactured at the end 2015, van bought July 2018 - that’s not 3-4 years old mate.) Tyres are probably OK for 7-10 years - especially on a caravan, where they really don’t do much except roll.
Your positive experience is - pretty much - evidence that this system, while perhaps hypothetically imperfect, is far from a smoking gun on safety. (You toured the country without incident…)
People think there are (or should be) regulations in place on a range of issues, all the time, when in fact there are not.
I’m not suggesting you are wrong; I’m suggesting there needs to be compelling evidence (as opposed to a nice idea) to get shot-callers to listen and change the status quo.
JC
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