There are lots of discount motorcycle tyre suppliers who pass themselves off as being located in the UK. That’s all well and good until your tyres are delayed and to rub salt in the wounds, you end up having to pay additional import charges. This guide shows you who’s based here in the UK and who’s not.
Additional Costs
Let’s take a set of Metzeler Roadtec 01 SE tyres with a 120/70-17 front and 180/55-17 rear. A common fitment. The typical UK price is £259.
Taking a typical EU tyre supplier’s price for the same tyres we get £227. It’s likely you’ll face an import charge of 4% duty and then VAT on top at 20%. This will add around £43 to your bill. You might also pay additional carriage or clearance costs with the courier for their additional paperwork, roughly £10-15 depending on the carrier.
Your ‘bargain’ £227 tyres end up costing you £270 from Europe, compared to £259 from the UK.
Import Delays
The cost isn’t the biggest issue; for most people it’s the delays and hassle of trying to contact the retailer and the courier to get the required customs clearance.
We have had multiple customers who call up and their opening gambit is along these lines: “I bought some tyres from another online retailer but only one has turned up. I’ve been waiting for 10 days for the other one but I’m off on a trip this weekend. Is there any chance you could supply me with the tyre that’s gone AWOL?”
We’ve also had customers who say when they go to cancel the order it’s a nightmare as they have to send the tyres back at great expense.
It’s a faff you could do without.
Warranty Issues
Tyres with defects aren’t common but if it happens to you, who’s going to deal with it? Your UK-based retailer or the EU mail-order warehouse? Returning a tyre to the EU costs around £30 and you’ll also need to fill out customs forms.
The bigger issue is the date codes of the tyres. Every tyre has a manufacturing date stamped on the side but some discount suppliers sell ‘aged stock’ which they can buy cheaper and therefore sell cheaper. Do you want a ‘new-old’ tyre on your bike?
We bought a tyre from the EU to see what happened
…because we wanted to quash the myths and nonsense flying around various forums.
We read a lot of conflicting opinions on the internet when it came to whether or not you were charged anything extra if you bought a tyre from the EU and had it sent to the UK.
So we bought a tyre for £164.95 from an Italian retailer. Any purchase over £135 (should) qualify for UK import duty and VAT. So we put this to the test.
To the retailer’s credit, the tyre arrived from northern Italy to London just 4 days later, which we thought was pretty good going. We also thought we’d got away without additional charges as the courier just handed the tyre over.
Then a week later we had a letter from FedEx (the courier) with a demand for £61.05. Ouch!
The breakdown is as follows:
- £6.62 of Duty
- £39.13 of VAT
- £12.75 FedEx admin fee (£15.30 with VAT)
As you can see from the photo above, our ‘bargain’ EU tyre started out at a bargain £164.95 but cost us a whopping £227.
Our UK retail price for the same tyre as we write this article? £207.
EU vs UK Price Comparison Table
Let’s take a look at another typical example. Take the Metzeler Roadtec 01 SE in 180/55-17 size. It’s one of the most popular tyres on the market, so pricing and competition are fierce. In the table below we compare the prices between different retailers who sell online.
Retailer
Location
Price on Website
Approx Price with UK Duty paid etc.
moto-tyres.co.uk
EU
£139.49
£175
twotyres.co.uk
UK
£144
£144
demon-tweeks.co.uk
UK
£146
£146
oponeo.co.uk
EU
£148
£190
Don’t forget, you will be liable for additional charges (not to mention delays) on tyres from the EU.
For example, a £200 pair of tyres bought from a German website will attract 4% or £8 customs duty. VAT at 20% is then applied to the total of £208, giving a VAT bill of £41.60. Once the courier has added its £11.50 admin fee, the UK consumer must pay £61.10 to the courier on the doorstep before it will hand over the item – adding around 30% to the tyre’s price.
As you can see, there are significant other costs involved. So your ‘bargain’ tyres could arrive up to 14 days later from the EU and will cost you £50 more. Not a good deal.
Motorcycle tyre retailers and where they are based
In the image above you’ll spot a slim doorway between a women’s fashion shop and a hairdresser. This is one of those ‘virtual offices’ where you can pay a monthly fee and get a postal address. This location is allegedly where one of the EU’s largest motorcycle tyre retailers operates from in the UK. I wouldn’t fancy lugging 1,000 tyres a day through that little door, would you?
The fact is, it’s just a mailing address, no tyres are stored or sent from this location. It just helps the EU retailer look like a UK company.
Below we’ve put together a guide to help you make an informed decision about where you buy your motorcycle tyres from. It’s not always easy to know where a retailer is located as most of the online retailers in mainland Europe try and pass themselves off as a UK operation by having a .co.uk domain name and a registered office (usually little more than a mailbox) in the UK.
We’ve listed the parent company and the websites with .co.uk (UK) web addresses but we’ve also listed where the tyres are likely to come from.
DELTICOM / DELTILOG
Germany
Registered UK Address: DeltiLog Ltd, 6 Langdale Court, Witney, Oxfordshire, OX28 6FG
Tyres sent from Europe or the UK? Europe
Runs the following websites:
You can also read user reviews of the parent company delticom.de here.
Â
OPONEO
Poland
Registered UK Address: Oponeo.co.uk Ltd. No:1 28-29, London, W5 2NP
Tyres sent from Europe or the UK? Europe
Runs the following websites:Â
Â
TYRES PNEUS ONLINE
Netherlands
Registered Address: Pneus Online Trading, Strawinskylaan 1431, 1077 XX Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Tyres sent from Europe or the UK? Europe
Runs the following websites:Â
MYNETMOTO
Romania
Registered Address: myNETmoto SRL Pta. Aurarilor 10 550182 Sibiu ROMANIA
Tyres sent from Europe or the UK? Europe
Runs the following websites:Â
BLACKCIRCLES
Scotland
Registered Address: 1 Tanfield, Edinburgh, EH3 5DA
Tyres sent from Europe or the UK? UK
Runs the following websites:Â
blackcircles.com
DEMON TWEEKS
Wales
Registered Address: 75 Ash Road, Wrexham Industrial Estate, Wrexham, Clwyd, LL13 9UG
Tyres sent from Europe or the UK? UK
Runs the following websites:Â
demon-tweeks.co.uk
TWO TYRES
England
Registered Address: Unit 1, Peterboat Close, London, SE10 0PX
Tyres sent from Europe or the UK? UK
Runs the following websites:Â
twotyres.co.uk
The final word
Everyone likes to shop around and grab a bargain. It’s part of what makes us tick. However, it’s worth knowing what you’re in for when you buy a tyre from Europe.
You’ll be liable for additional charges and a longer shipping time.
Plus, if it goes wrong, it’s not like a tyre is a tiny item you can slip in a jiffy bag and drop off at the local post office. As a consumer, it’s difficult to find a carrier who will accept tyres.
So shop around, have a look at where your tyres are coming from to see if you’ll get whacked with additional charges and remember: UK retailers are often far cheaper than they first appear.
