Car Tire Regrooving Scam Is Spreading

[Rogue One]

Watch this YouTube video and see how easy it is for scammers to create “new” looking tires from worn out rubbish.

Full story here: Regrooving a Tire

[Jesda]

Well, this took longer to happen than I expected.

[Bubba1]

Regrooving's been around for decades. Legally on large truck tires (manufacturered as regroovable), and illegally on non-regroovable car tires. It's just one (of many) items a used car buyer must examine before making a deal. Most are easily spotted. I'm mildly surprised by how many folks have been unaware.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Yeah I was going to say those re-grooved lines to the outside of the tire were no where near even or repeatable.

[Jesda]

Surprising since a new set can be had for so darn cheap.

My Wally World specials on the NC were $250 installed. The Potenzas I put on the NB were $200 shipped plus installation.

[Jesda]

Regrooving's been around for decades. Legally on large truck tires (manufacturered as regroovable), and illegally on non-regroovable car tires. It's just one (of many) items a used car buyer must examine before making a deal. Most are easily spotted. I'm mildly surprised by how many folks have been unaware.

With truck tires I thought they applied all new rubber to the old casing rather than just cutting into old rubber.

[Buzzman]

Regrooving's been around for decades. Legally on large truck tires (manufacturered as regroovable), and illegally on non-regroovable car tires. It's just one (of many) items a used car buyer must examine before making a deal. Most are easily spotted. I'm mildly surprised by how many folks have been unaware.

With truck tires I thought they applied all new rubber to the old casing rather than just cutting into old rubber.

Those are retreads, as opposed to this scam of cutting grooves in worn tires.
Retreads, when done properly, are perfectly safe and acceptable.
Most airplanes have them.
Chances are, the last time you took a flight on a Boeing 737, it landed on retreads.

[Bubba1]

With truck tires I thought they applied all new rubber to the old casing rather than just cutting into old rubber.

That's actually recapping or "retreads", where new tread is glued to "prepared" rubber casings (acceptable worn down tires). Recapping is a huge business, especially for semi trailers. And if done right, safe. Regrooving is not as big a business. Certain new truck tires are labelled "regrooveable" . That means they are designed with several extra 32nds of rubber between the 2/32nd wearbars and the top layer of cord. They also have to be defect free (no cuts, dryrot, etc) to be regrooved or recapped. Regrooving involves simply cutting into a portion of that extra original tire "fat" along the main tread pattern to give the tire a few extra 32nd's (ie give a few thousand extra legal miles) yet remain re-cappable. The main downsides to regrooved tires are being more prone to flats/blowouts, poorly done regrooving , cutting down too much to the point a recapper won't accept it (killing its value) and regrooving an unacceptable tire (dry rot, cuts, non-regrooveable tires etc), making the tire immediately unsafe. Unlike regrooving, which can only be done once to a specific type of tire, it's possible to recap a tire more than once (assuming the casing is in good shape). when I worked for Strick Trailer, I used to have regroovers approach me regularly. Regrooving could be done for as little as $15 per tire (regrooving your tires) back then, but some of them did inconsistent work described in the article. Strick officially did not use regroovers, but it was a common trick for companies trading in trailers or returning off long term lease to try to sneak regrooved tires in. For less than the cost of one newly recapped tire, you could theoretically regroove several worn tires and make them seem like they had 1/3 of their life left. Very convenient if your lease agreement includes tire wear. That's we had to keep a close eye on the tires. For our intermodal fleet (rail trailers + chassis), I used recappers regularly as they were a huge cost savings, safe, warranteed, and less likely to get stolen than virgin tires. I hope that helps.

[ArmedAviator]

With truck tires I thought they applied all new rubber to the old casing rather than just cutting into old rubber.

Those are retreads, as opposed to this scam of cutting grooves in worn tires.
Retreads, when done properly, are perfectly safe and acceptable.
Most airplanes have them.
Chances are, the last time you took a flight on a Boeing 737, it landed on retreads.

Truth. Atleast one or two tires per plane is a retread in our fleet of 150+ jets.