Used tyres warning (rant)

[Linas.P]

Intro

Just wanted to to share some of the issues I see with used tyres and mistakes people make when buying them, and general trends of used tyres market. Hopefully people will realise how horrible of the deal they are. Sadly, it seems people just do not realise they paying more for used tyres than they think, often even more than new premium tyres costs.

Why it even matters? Well... I make naive assumption that people are rational and that they would try to maximise value when making purchase. Secondly, we need to understand that tyre is wear items, also why projected lifespan is important for wear items, and then we can figure out how to calculate the value of it. Once we know both "life expectancy" and value, we can compare the costs of options between used and new tyres and inform our buying decisions... hopefully... 

Usable Thread and Value of New Tyre

The remaining thread depth is not the same usable thread depth. So that is the first mistake people do when shopping for used tyres. We need to understand how much of usable thread the tyre has and then it is possible to calculate cost/value of tyre per 1mm of thread and that is what I will use to prove my point.

Let's take some very popular tyre e.g. Michelin Cross Climate 2. Lets say they start with 7.3 mm of thread new and they can do 20,000 miles before being replaced, but here is the key thing - 7.3 mm is not the useful thread, so that is not what we consume in those 20,000 miles. We have 1.6 mm legal requirement, also it is impossible that all tyres on car will wear perfectly evenly on both axels, on both sides, on centres and edges etc. So realistically it is almost impossible to use the tyre below 2 mm and finally most tyres lose their aquaplaning capabilities below 3mm (aquaplaning resistance to large degree depends on the how deep the channels are on the tyre and with less depth they are less effective). In practice one would need to start considering tyre replacement at ~3 mm thread left, and replace them before they get to ~2 mm. For easier calculation let's say we replace the tyre at 2.3 mm. So that means we have 5 mm of usable thread depth on brand new CC2 that has to last 20,000 miles. CC2 costs ~£140 + £10 fitting balancing. So we can say 1mm of thread costs us £30.

Calculating Value of Used Tyre

Now let's look into used tyres and figure out how cheap the used tyre has to be save your money... and I would assume majority of people buy used tyres to save money (right?). To start with, used tyres are not as reliable as new ones... what I mean by that - they are more likely to leak, crack, wear unevenly etc. so we need to factor this into the price. Let's say 25% to cover our risk. This means we are looking to pay £22.5/mm for used tyre at most. Next - as we know new tyre will last us 20,000 miles, so we only need to replace it once in 20,000 miles, used tyre by the nature will need to be replaced more often, so we need to also calculate the cost of more frequent replacement and I just consider it as £10 (but it is actually more, as it takes time, you need to drive to the place, the tyres have delivery cost etc). And math is simple here - new tyre has 5mm of usable thread means £10 to fit, used tyre with 4.5mm thread (2.5mm usable) is £20, because you will need to replace it twice to cover same distance. Based on criteria outlined above we can do a quick calculation of what used CC2 has to cost to at least MATCH the value of new CC2 (remaining thread - price): 6mm - £69, 5mm - £42, 4mm - £9, 3mm - actually is worth below £0, you losing like £50 by fitting 3mm tyre.

The Used Tyre Market

Now if we go and check the prices of used tyres, we will find that very few of them are sold at 6mm, if they ever sold at 6mm, then they usually have repair and the cost is usually ~£100, most tyres offered for sale are 4-5mm remaining and for CC2 the price is often £70-80. Most of used tyres generally are listed as "4-5mm" from which we can imply they are not evenly worn - in some places they measure let's say 4.8mm, in other places maybe 4.3mm, so realistically what "4-5mm" means is 4mm. As above, 4mm tyre is nearly worthless for us if we want to just MATCH the value we are getting with new tyre. But we don't want to MATCH, we want to save money! And for us to reliably save money on used tyre, they have to be 50% cheaper than new, not cheaper overall, but cheaper PER REMAINING MM. So what the price looks like then? 6mm - £42, 5mm - £22, and 4mm basically has to be free. Considering that most used tyres sold are at that "4-5mm" and they still cost like £70, we are making instant loss of £70 by even bothering with that junk. And people are still offering 3mm tyres for sale, I have seen Michelin PS4 at 2mm for sale! Don't do it!

Another common thing if we using CC2 as example (any current generation tyre)... CC2 is relatively new tyre, so what you will find for sale is CC(1) and CC+, but those tyres are objectively inferior to CC2, because they are old design and because now they cost less new etc. So don't make mistake looking at used CC(1) with 6mm of thread and comparing it with new CC2 in value. To make any sense of buying older design tyres we need to build in even larger buffer for it to be worth it. And CC2 maybe not the best example, but let's say we looking at Continental Premium Contact 7 (PC7)... well the clue is in the name... so if we see PC3 for sale, that means this is 5 generations old tyre, that is like 15 years old (and tyres generally have shelf time of 10 years, even assuming they kept in good conditions), so what is PC3 worth? Well - it is JUNK! If you need tyre temporarily and it is given to you for free, then okey, but paying money for it is just financially irresponsible!

Exceptions

There are few reasons to actually buy used tyre, but they are very specific and niche. I can only think of four reasons, but maybe there are more. 

1. You have matching set of premium tyres and for whatever reason of of them get's damaged beyond repair. So let's say you have Michelin PSS (Pilot SuperSport). They are still at 5mm, so you fair amount of thread left and replacing all 4 would be waste. You can't fit brand new PSS, because they not sold anymore to begin with, also the new tyre will behave differently to the rest, so you get imbalance on axle in braking, just not great idea to have new tyre on one side and significantly worn on the other. So perhaps it makes sense to buy one PSS with 5mm thread for £80. Yes based on calculation above you losing money on that tyre, but also you saving money on other 3 tyres. So it makes sense.
2. You just had a puncture, tyre is not repairable and you are away from home, so you get whatever used tyre is available at the time, before you can do your research, calculate what is best decision and find matching tyre, or maybe replace all the tyre on that axle or all 4. So - "as a temporary measure".
3. You are some sort of racer, drifter whatever. You need practice tyres and also low thread depth is actually beneficial on dry track, so for example the PS4 tyres I have seen sold for £20 would work for that purpose. It does not matter what tyre you fit, if it will only last 1 track day, then why waste £100 tyre, if you can get £20 tyre. 
4. You are selling car and you don't care... and buyer does not care either and does not knock down the price for the set of tyres.

I honestly can't think of any other reason you would choose to waste money with used tyres unless the yare dirt cheap or literally free.

Illustrative example

Maybe "£" symbols will right a bell in somebodies head. Situation - one needs new tyre and wants good quality tyre which will get them trough most of the weather, CC2 seems like good contender (Pirelli Cinturato AllSeason SF3 is the best today) and one looks at the price of £150 per tyre fitted (£600 total) and thinks it is "steep", which it is. So they decide to get used tyre, not budget (which is fair thing to do) and end-up with 2xCC1 with 4mm for £140 thread and 2xCC+ with 5mm thread for £180 +£9 delivery for each, £338 total. That on the surface looks like £262 saving. Now they need to fit all the tyres and another £40 is spent. So their initial saving is down to £222. There are issue tough - one tyre has slow leak, probably slight damage in the bead due to being previously fitted, then removed and also has previous repair, the other wheel does not balance well, so there is little bit of vibration at certain speeds... but that is price for saving £222 right? Maybe... but 10,000 miles later they have one of the tyres cracking, so it kind of needs replacement soon, of the 2xCC1 that they bought at 4mm, one is now at 2.5mm and other closer to 2mm on inner edge and needs replacement as well, CC+ are now close to 3mm, besides one of them has that annoying slow leak. So what do they do? They get 4 used tyres again, let's assume same price + fitting. And what do we have after 20,000 miles? They have spent £756 for used tyres, have suffered slow leaks, vibrations, maybe spent £10 on rebalancing once, £15 on the sealant bottle... also likely spent 4 hours more of their time finding the tyres and going to fit them, drove 100 more miles in total to and from fitting place (say £20). So they have spent £801 instead of £600 and suffered for 2 years, not to mention extra time it took to have everything arranged, checked, fitted etc. And that is before even considering of other factors who knows maybe that damaged the wheel bearing (for £500 with labour) by running poorly balanced tyre for 20,000 miles. Where exactly is the saving?

So having this proposition in front of you - would you rather pay £600 (maybe use credit card and pay extra £50 in interest), or you rather play around with questionable quality used tyres and spend £800? And that is even before actual risks involved, maybe you don't notice slow leak and just blow one of them, maybe one develops budge on the inside wall and need to be replaced + you miss it and it causes you MOT failure (time and money). If it would be saving I would I would say "was it worth it", but as we can see it isn't even saving to begin with. The used tyre in this case costed £40/mm, when new only costs £30/mm

This quite nicely illustrates my point - used tyres have to be dirt cheap for us to be able to save money on them. If we go by my calculation above, person in this example should have only paid £18 for the used CC1s and £84 for used CC+s, in which case they would have spent £365, had some headaches, but perhaps the actual saving of £235 would have been worth that... BUT nobody is selling 4mm CC1s for £9 (it would cost more to deliver them!) and surely nobody is selling 5mm CC+s for £42 either. 

Few analogies - tyres are not like smartphones, smartphones are not "wear items", so by buying used last generation smartphone you are likely going to get 90% of utility, for likely 50% of the price. With used tyres it is almost opposite - you are paying 70% of the price for 30% of the utility. I think buying used tyres would be similar to buying half bottle of brandy (whisky... [insert] your choice), So not only that somebody has opened it and drunk it, not clear how long it was "airing out", but also there is only 50% of the valuable liquid inside. If new bottle has 0.7L of stuff, which works out as £14.3/100ml, then why would you pay £20/100ml when it is half used? So if the bottle originally costed £100, would you pay £70 for half bottle of it?! I hope not...

Conclusion

Tyre is wear item, so it's value diminishes with remaining USABLE thread depth, people confuse remaining depth with remaining usable depth. Also used tyre will not perform as well as new tyre (seems obvious, but for some reason it isn't). I know my effort here is futile, especially in UK owners are so amazingly ignorant and do not care, it is almost impossible to burst that bubble of ignorance... people look at the tyres as "black round circles" and they don't understand anything about them "rubber is rubber". It is almost funny to me that I am arguing not to buy used premium tyres, when people buy budgets (which works out way more expensive than premium tyres in long run - discussion for another time, but reasons are similar) or worse (my head literally hurts thinking about it) - buys used budget tyres, runs mixed used budget tyres on same axle 🤯 etc. etc. So I do appreciate if you read this and are informed by what I said, but I also appreciate that most could not even relate, for most this concept of "doing research... about what?! about tyres?!" is so alien, they just would not be able to comprehend why this topic even exist and why would anyone care (and short answer to that you should care because of safety, and if not safety at least for your hard earned money).

Now I hope that after reading this and seeing £90 used tyre on eBay you would consider "other costs" next time and I hope it helps, otherwise thanks for reading and take care!

[steve2006]

Nice write up Linas.

Used tyres are a risk, a risk I personally wouldn’t take.

Visual inspection of used tyres will not easily reveal defects when off the rim.

The only thing you can check on a used tyre is the manufacturing date.

[dutchie01]

The one and only reason for me to never ever think about using a used Tyre is safety. Its round, black and the profile seems ok but it has been on another car previously, it is used! Why is it no longer on that other car?? In lots of cases these cars have been in an accident and are written off and sold in parts. Hence the tyres. Now it can well be the wheels were smashed and damaged and the tyre(s) have been bent/hit/ internally damaged. You dont see it from the outside but the steel internals can be gone. 

[GMB]

I didn't have the patience or stamina or just couldn't be 'rsed reading Linas' rant about used tyres just to say that whatever he says is right ( based on his usual impeccable logic ) and the answer is simply Don't do it!!!  Unless of course your life is not worth a few quid.

[J Henderson]

Totally agree. Used tyres can be something of a false economy.

In fact even buying new tyres, loose, via mail order can prove to be a worthless pursuit due to the cost of getting them fitted. I see you mention a fitting cost of £10... Is that even realistic? In my experience, that's a price from many many years ago. Unless you can get them done somewhere friendly "off the books" for cash.

I had to pay £20 to have a loose tyre fitted (and balanced, with new valve) just last year. The price difference between mail order and fully-fitted on blackcircles.com is just under £20 too.

I had ordered my loose tyre online a year earlier using a discount code for what seemed like a good deal (and it was), especially since tyre prices jumped a fair bit after Ukraine was invaded.

But, given the extra hassle of it being delivered to my door - an extra £12.50 (and also having to make myself available for when the courier was going to show up), then storing it somewhere until it was needed... On top of this, I of course then had to take the tyre, plus the wheel to the garage to have it fitted - for the aforementioned £20.

In the grand scheme of things, even with that £32.50 of extra costs, yes I did save a few quid but not enough to justify all that extra "work" involved.

The only real advantage was that I could order the exact same matching Michelin PS4 that was on the car (same EU label, XL, non OEM-specific compound), instead of just showing up at the tyre centre and saying "I need a size x Michelin PS4" and potentially getting one of the many slightly different variants. That's if any PS4s would even be in stock at all since the newer Pilot Sport 5 has been out for a while now.

As for used tyres, they're not really something I look for, but I've bought them a few times in the past.

I remember buying a pair of Pirelli P-Zero Nero off eBay for my IS200, not long after I got it, then being absolutely shocked at how much Kwik-Fit charged to fit them (£42). So, that bargain pair of tyres ended up being a £100+ purchase - for half-worn tyres.

I also bought another pair of part-worn Continentals for that car but ended up giving them away to a friend, because they made horrible vibrations felt through the steering. I think they had been subjected to a track day, or had been rubbing on bodywork or something in their previous application.

Saying that, I did have a very favourable experience when I bought a nearly-new set of Michelin winter tyres. They were bought during the summer so were lower-priced than normal. Plus, In that case I handed them over along with a spare set of wheels that I wanted refurbished. So, the fitting costs were essentially "free" as they were absorbed into the price of the refurbishment. 

I wouldn't be against buying used tyres in the future but they would have to be very well-priced, and/or nearly new or low mileage, given the fitting costs involved. Ideally, combing the purchase with a wheel refurbishment job, to be fully cost-effective as there's a place quite near to me that does full powdercoat refurb in basic colour (black,white,silver) for only £150.

[Linas.P]

All good points above, and I personally also wouldn't do it mainly for safety reasons... however I do understand the desire to save some money, some people really could not afford £600 right now and used premium tyre is probably still safer than brand new chinesium dichfiners 3000 (debatable, but here people also underestimate how bad most of them are). But in such case, I would expect the saving to be there - I think we all agree the price of your health and life is not worth paying, but also I appreciate that people should have a right to make that decision for themselves, it would also feel wrong to throw away occasional perfectly good used tyre (there are benefits in reusing and reducing waste).

And again, we all will have our own criteria, some will feel it is worth the risk others won't, but putting ourselves in shoes of other person who may consider used tyre... I am sure we would at very least expect that there is saving to be made. There isn't any reason, but the money saving and when they are sold at such prices, where they cost more than new tyre... it really rubs me wrong way!

The other thing which rubs me wrong way - the fact that they are sold for such prices means that there are people who pay such prices. If everyone would understand the calculations I presented, then nobody would pay as much, and sellers would not be able to ask rip-off prices for basically junk, but they can, because people seems to pay those prices.

@J Henderson - you are right, £10 per tyre is low, I just considered absolutelly best case scenario to stay fair and objective. There is guy near me who does it for £10 - just fitting and balancing, but yes if you do valve as well, then add £5 for that... and this is still cheap. I didn't want to calculate the time it takes, but absolutelly that is consideration as well. Even if we work on the basis of national minimum, you can easily spend 4 hours extra on all work related to finding and fitting used tyres, so that alone will be £40. As you said - the economy of used tyres is likely even worse, but that was my intention... to prove that even as BEST CASE scenario they are not worth it... and surely it could be much worse than that.

Same as you, I have done it for winter tyres once, going abroad where they were mandatory requirement, buying new set just for one trip seemed like a waste (and winter tyres are also expensive, like £250 per tyre). Besides winter tyres often are still quite cheap, or were cheap like 8 years ago when I did it. So that was okey in that occasion. But now for most of mainstream tyres are just not worth it. 

And as you said - I am not against used tyres in principle, I like to have the choice and be able to decide, but the whole point of used tyre is cost saving... and if no costs are being saved then why do it?

[GMB]

  SLIME!!!    ---    We are lucky, we have a fantastic chap near us that does a great job fitting tyres properly, and he will even order them too. G's garage in Adlington. He went above and beyond the call of duty when he replaced 2 tyres and cleaned the rims from the nasty "slime" that the previous owner had put in. It took 3 hours! to clean them properly - no charge!  One of the tyres that he replaced only had about 500 miles on it - but we had to replace both because it is the right thing to do. I suggested that he may want to sell it as almost new and he said that the sort of folk that buy second hand tyres are not worth dealing with.   Make of that what you will.

[JamesIS220]

In 2016 I bought my 1996 Volvo 940 estate for £250. It was a well neglected car but ran well. It had 3  different brands of tyres on and 3 different tread patterns. I slid on a double island, (back end started to slide out) soon after purchasing the car even though car fully laden with renovation tools and not going too fast in the wet. Went from the UK Midlands to the West coast of Ireland from Fishguard to Rosslaire.

On my return I looked on eBay and got lucky with Michelin Energy saver being sold, as seller upgraded to a larger size alloy wheel from 15 inch. The new buyer only wanted the 4 and not the spare! Bought the virtually unused spare that was 8 months old for £25 and 7.8mm tread. A few weeks later bought another Michelin energy Saver used but again less than 12 months old by 4 number DOT code for £20.

Had my garage check them over and happy to fit and balance them for £15 the pair. No puncture repairs and still on the vehicle although last few years just left the Winter tyre set on as only do 1-2k miles a year. Winter tyres were bought new. Goodyear Ultragrip 9. Had a puncture on edge and bought a new old stock replacement as 9 now discontinued and now 9+ with different pattern.

Michelins Still in good condition with no cracks but getting on now.

A few months later bought 2 new Michelin energy savers from ATS for the front. Both have around 5mm of tread.

Toyota Auris have Goodyear Efficient Grip Type 2 new from the dealer. Been on around 3 years and around 4.5mm on front.

[microgerry]

Not too sure why most people are against used tyres in general, surely when you purchase a used car it has four used tyres on it? 

As mentioned above, used premium tyres are probably better than new budget tyres. And aren't the used tyre centres governed by laws or regulations on the quality of the tyres they sell?

[Linas.P]

2 hours ago, microgerry said:

And aren't the used tyre centres governed by laws or regulations on the quality of the tyres they sell?

There are, but surprise surprise the regulations are useless and criteria is so broad that almost any tyre without hole and without cords exposed will pass, see below:

Quote

• the structural integrity isn’t compromised. They should be free of cuts longer than 25 millimetres or 10% of the section width of the tyre (whichever is the greater), measured in any direction, on the outside of the tyre and not be deep enough to reach the ply or cord 
• the original grooves are clearly visible in their entirety and must be to a depth of at least 2mm across the full breadth of the tread and around the entire circumference 
• there are no lumps or bulges either internally or externally caused by the separation or partial failure of its structure 
• none of the ply or cord is exposed internally or externally 
• tyres must have passed an inflation test before sale. When inflated to the highest pressure at which it is designed to operate, the tyre must not exhibit any of the external defects 
• any penetration damage has been repaired to British Standard BS AU 159  

All part-worn tyres which have not been re-treaded must clearly show the relevant ‘E’ mark, with “PART-WORN” in uppercase letters at least 4mm high permanently and legibly applied to the tyre.  

Have you ever seen "PART-WORN" being written on used tyre... I have never seen that! Not to mention they are just not enforced, certainly not when you buy them online and unlikely even in person. 

Getting used tyres on the car is different story, I still look at them with suspicion, certainly I inspect tyres carefully, but assumption is - tyre was manufactured, delivered to authorised tyre retailer that handled the tyre correctly, was fitted and since then it was on the wheel. So you shouldn't really worry about things like maybe the tyre was left rotting for 2 years in the field, was frozen in the winter and was sitting baking in the sun in the summer... and then somebody run it over with tractor, realised there is some thread left on it, pressure washed it and put it on eBay. Extreme case, but in theory possible. They could be fault in all imaginable ways. 

Tyres are tough, but they have to be using to their spec. I think the biggest issue is that inside of the tyre is not meant to be exposed to elements for prolonged period of time, also tyre is not mean to be left not inflated under stress. On used tyre you just don't know where it was and how it was handled, and reality is that most of them are sitting stacked high in the field for years.

I am personally not against used tyres, I just want to see them reasonably priced so that they actually represent saving as they suppose to.

 

[PRT68]

As the above poster says, buy a car and it already has tyres on it. 

Do people immediately purchase a set of tyres to replace them? I suppose some do. 

Do people refuse to hire a car when on holiday unless it has new tyres on it before driving away?

Do people refuse to get into a taxi unless it has new tyres on it?

I was a taxi driver for 22 years. Nobody checked all my tyres before they got in......

[GMB]

Well, some things are OK and some things aren't. I suppose you must trust the dealer or hire car company to do the due diligence. It's all a matter of degree of risk and common sense. Ask the question - why have these tyres been got rid of when they are only part worn? I dumped some Avon Tyres that looked fine and must have had about 10K miles left on them at least. They were removed because they always tracked to the left and this was not exactly dangerous but annoying and No it was not the camber of the road. The last tyres I dumped from a recently acquired vehicle were full of slime so I got rid of those too. Just saying that there's always a reason.  BTW the next time you catch a bus check for bulges on the sidewalls, unfortunately the driver will be long gone before you get round to the last one.🚌

[steve2006]

A friend of mine has just purchased. 2019 Lamborghini Urus from a dealer and as part of the deal insisted that the 2 front tyres were replaced with new ones.

The tyres are 325/30/23 (I didn’t even know they made 23” wheels and the rims are bigger than my 18” wheels and tyres fitted to the Celsior!).

Pirelli P-Zero at £700.00 odd each were fitted and then he was told that as there was no Lamborghini stamp on them it could invalidate his warranty!
Apparently tyre manufacturers’ design tyres specifically for the brand.

On this occasion I suspect that the 2 part worn tyres removed won’t find their way onto another Lambo 😀

[Linas.P]

4 hours ago, PRT68 said:

As the above poster says, buy a car and it already has tyres on it. 

Do people immediately purchase a set of tyres to replace them? I suppose some do. 

Do people refuse to hire a car when on holiday unless it has new tyres on it before driving away?

Do people refuse to get into a taxi unless it has new tyres on it?

I was a taxi driver for 22 years. Nobody checked all my tyres before they got in......

You are taking this little bit out of context. The key of my rant above was about the cost, not some sort of deeply routed dislike for used tyres. Why would you pay MORE for used tyres?

[serbarry]

On 10/24/2024 at 7:30 PM, J Henderson said:

Totally agree. Used tyres can be something of a false economy.

In fact even buying new tyres, loose, via mail order can prove to be a worthless pursuit due to the cost of getting them fitted. I see you mention a fitting cost of £10... Is that even realistic? In my experience, that's a price from many many years ago. Unless you can get them done somewhere friendly "off the books" for cash.

I had to pay £20 to have a loose tyre fitted (and balanced, with new valve) just last year. The price difference between mail order and fully-fitted on blackcircles.com is just under £20 too.

I had ordered my loose tyre online a year earlier using a discount code for what seemed like a good deal (and it was), especially since tyre prices jumped a fair bit after Ukraine was invaded.

But, given the extra hassle of it being delivered to my door - an extra £12.50 (and also having to make myself available for when the courier was going to show up), then storing it somewhere until it was needed... On top of this, I of course then had to take the tyre, plus the wheel to the garage to have it fitted - for the aforementioned £20.

In the grand scheme of things, even with that £32.50 of extra costs, yes I did save a few quid but not enough to justify all that extra "work" involved.

 

Last year I bought a set of new tyres for my GS online for 2 reasons: they were a bit cheaper than buying them from the garage (even considering that I paid 23.50 euros per tyre to have them fitted), but the main reason was that online there was plenty of choice and I could pick the brand/type I wanted, while buying from the garages they were offering either premium tyres at exaggerated prices or unknown brands, not for a cheap price, and they said they were good tyres. After all every tyres garage needs to sell what they have and they will never tell you that its tyres are bad. Anyway I found the purchase online quite easy and convenient as the tyres were delivered to the garage which after fitted them on my car, so I did not have to carry them there.    

[Malc1]

A couple of years ago I bought 2 brand new Falkens off Oponeo to have fitted at a local to me tyre fitter …… Oponeo dealt with delivery etc. I just had to make the appointment 

That was good value for money 

A few weeks ago I made the same enquiries and the end Oponeo pricing wasn’t advantageous for the same tyres ……..so I visited a local National proper tyre place 

On another car a rear tyre started deflating, it had a leak on the rim seal ……very  local tyre place charged £25 to remove the tyre, confirm it was all ok ( no puncture etc ) and refitted, balance etc ……. that tyre and wheel are now fine …….  It seemed, looked to have about 50% life left in the tyre tread etc …… maybe 10k miles left 

This local tyre place also supplied and fitted two brand new Falkens at a competitive price to my other local National Name provider ….. I was happier to spend my money at a very local small business 

I doubt I would ever use 2nd hand tyres ……. 

Malc 

[Linas.P]

If one is looking for specific tyre brand and model, then the only option is to get the tyres online. For example I was looking at CC2 now and there are 4 different Michelin CC2 in 225/50/R17 size... the variation is small, but for example one gets C for fuel economy, other is rate for lower speed etc. So the likelihood that you found the tyre you like, say rated B for economy A for wet grip and A for noise and going to go to your local tyre shop to find exact rating in the size you need is nearly impossible. Or each shop would have to have warehouse that is 2 miles long to store all possible variations. 

Also risk - you may get tyres for good prices, but maybe they had those tyres in display for 3 years. Who knows... Whereas ordering online you are almost guaranteed to get tyre made within last 12 months (there exceptions, but it is rare). Sure one can really nit pick and ask to see the tyres before they are fitted and check date codes (why can't they simply put date there!) etc. But who is realistically doing that.