How do I know when my tyre needs to be replaced?

There are a few factors that will let you know when you should replace your motorcycle tyre.

Wear

This is the most obvious sign that your tyres need replacing, when you have worn out the tread. Check to see if your tyres have reached the legal limit for road use by looking at the tyre wear indicator bars on both the front and the rear tyres. If you only do motorway miles, you might well have completely worn out the central belt of the tyres while the majority of the tyre looks new. Even in this case, you’ll need to decide on your tyre’s legality based on the most worn part of the tyre and not the average across the tyre’s surface.

Age

Look at the date stamp on the side of the tyres, it’ll be a four figure number that shows you the week and year that the tyre was produced. As a general rule we recommend you don’t fit tyres that are over 5 years old ands you replace tyres that are over 10 years old. The reality is that most bikers will replace their tyres far more frequently than this but if you buy that old classic you’ve been lusting after for years, make sure you check the tyres, as they could be dangerous if they are very old.

Condition

You might have fitted brand new tyres 5 years ago to your favourite bike but only covered a few miles each year to the MOT station and back, so surely the tyres will be fine? Not always. Check for signs of damage to the tyre, including cracks in your motorcycle tyre’s surface, petrol or oil on the tyres and other factors that could damage your tyre.

Other factors

Years ago, the general rule of thumb was that you’d replace two rear tyres to every front. This was pretty much universal, no matter what tyre you were running on the road. However, more and more, manufacturers are developing their fronts to perform at a higher level and so they tend to wear out at the same rate as the rear tyre.

Of course if you rear is completely squared off and your front still has some miles left in it, you can just replace the rear. While this might save you a few quid (and we’re all for keeping costs down), you might find that the bike doesn’t handle as well as it should, as the part-worn front is the tyre that helps the bike find its way into corners.

So if you have less than 30% of the front tyre’s tread left, we’d recommend our customers replace it at the same time as the rear.