Tyre tread on new tyres

[replicant71]

Was checking the tyres on my new S3 today (Bridgestones) and noticed that the tread depth is only about 6mm. My previous new car had Pirellis and they were only 6mm when new too.

I always thought new tyres started off with about 8mm?

Is that not the case these days?

Are we being fleeced by the tyre companies?

 

[Jason1987]

Was checking the tyres on my new S3 today (Bridgestones) and noticed that the tread depth is only about 6mm. My previous new car had Pirellis and they were only 6mm when new too.

I always thought new tyres started off with about 8mm?

Is that not the case these days?

Are we being fleeced by the tyre companies?

I read that tyres that come with new cars and full tread

 

[monkeyhanger]

Was checking the tyres on my new S3 today (Bridgestones) and noticed that the tread depth is only about 6mm. My previous new car had Pirellis and they were only 6mm when new too.

I always thought new tyres started off with about 8mm?

Is that not the case these days?

Are we being fleeced by the tyre companies?

Bridgestones are notoriously hard (making them crap - noisy, poor turn in grip, poor traction (although S3's quattro system hides this quite well, on a FWD 2.0TDI, tramping is bad), poor comfort, high-rise and poor fuel economy.

The upside is that they last forever (prolonging the agony of how bad they are), so some bright spark at Bridgestone decided to put less tread on. Most new tyres come with 7.4mm or 8.0mm of tread. New Bridgestones come with 5.9mm. From an environmental point of view, making a tyre with 4.3mm of legal tread wear instead of 6.4mm is awful

 

[KXL]

Bridgestones are notoriously hard (making them crap - noisy, poor turn in grip, poor traction (although S3's quattro system hides this quite well, on a FWD 2.0TDI, tramping is bad), poor comfort, high-rise and poor fuel economy.

The upside is that they last forever (prolonging the agony of how bad they are), so some bright spark at Bridgestone decided to put less tread on. Most new tyres come with 7.4mm or 8.0mm of tread. New Bridgestones come with 5.9mm. From an environmental point of view, making a tyre with 4.3mm of legal tread wear instead of 6.4mm is awful

Ya, had a 2.0TDI 150 Seat Leon with Bridgestone ER300 Ecopias. didn't have much grip in wet (it was traction controlling it entering a sliproad in the wet when I put my foot down). And when it was as little bit cold, it didn't seem to want to brake well either. Car went back after 10k miles on the clock / 2 years, and it still had just under 5mm fronts and just over 5mm rears. It lost so little tread in 10k? The said TDI (from 2013) only could muster around 55-57mpg on highway runs, which is not that good.