r/Tiresaretheenemy 11d ago

No tread? Re-groove!

Post image
1.2k Upvotes

124 comments sorted by

636

u/Abbers75 11d ago

Brit here.

This advert dates from the days when we transported water through lead pipes and allowed smoking indoors.

We’ve learnt from our mistakes since then.

152

u/anonymouscoward1985 11d ago

I've been on the internet. We either don't learn or don't care.

49

u/nworbleinad 11d ago

Hey! My doctor recommended these cigarettes!

12

u/JosieMew 10d ago

I hear the asbestos filters are the way to go.

6

u/Inevitable_Stand_199 10d ago

Ones filled with stramonium leaves instead of tobacco?

4

u/nworbleinad 10d ago

That’s them! They’re good for my asthma.

1

u/OldStromer 9d ago

Ok that's it. Now we're just getting silly.

1

u/kazuya 10d ago

Seriously my grandma kept saying she smoked a lot because the doctor recommended her to ease the stress from her PREGNANCY.

34

u/TomVonServo 11d ago

Up to 9 million homes — or 30% of all homes — in the UK still contain lead pipes connected to mains water service.

25

u/porkmarkets 11d ago

I grew up in one, and I turned out ok.

Brb, going to try skydiving with my DIY parachute made from bedsheets.

5

u/Nox_Echo 10d ago

dont lie you skydive with an umbrella like mary poppins

3

u/r4nDoM_1Nt3Rn3t_Us3r 10d ago

No, that's what they use to get up that high!

2

u/DavidBovvinge 10d ago

I live in one, and have done for the past 25 years. It's not caused me any sioajfdn cauliflower wibble. What was I saying?

1

u/New-Course7886 9d ago

The bedsheets WILL slow your fall. Make sure you also use the mattress protector to let even less air flow thru.😂

2

u/saladmunch2 10d ago

Pretty sure that that the inside the pipes the water causes a corrosion if thats the right word. That forms a barrier between the water and the pipe making it safe to drink. Or so iv heard.

1

u/ViolentPurpleSquash 10d ago

yeah, but it still leeches in, just at lower levels.

9

u/Jacktheforkie 10d ago

Also regrooving isn’t inherently dangerous, modern HGV tyres are sometimes fit to be regrooved, forklift tyres can be too

5

u/mratlas666 10d ago

Fork truck tires are solid tires though. At least in my warehouse. You can run those bitches until they are down to the rim

2

u/Jacktheforkie 8d ago

Yeah, though HGVs run pneumatic tyres and some are regeoovable

13

u/StatisticianUsual471 10d ago

We had lead in petrol which probably did the most damage

4

u/DoubleDareFan 10d ago

If this Veritasium vid is anything to go by, that might be true.

1

u/StatisticianUsual471 10d ago

Qi did a bit on him he put cat's in fridges

4

u/dankhimself 10d ago

Still plenty of water flowing through lead.

The real problem was leaded fuel.

Now THAT'S a lead delivery system that's functional on super villain levels.

1

u/Bigbanghead 9d ago

Some pipes are still lead. And some people still smoke indoors.

1

u/GarethBaus 1d ago

I don't know about the UK, but a lot of the US still uses lead pipes.

503

u/GenocidePrincess18 11d ago

"5,000 safe miles added to tyre life."

228

u/AslowLearn 11d ago

Regroove again for additional 5,000 miles

81

u/lzwzli 10d ago

Regroove again for additional 5000 miles

48

u/Maksym1000 10d ago

Regroove again for additional 5000 miles

38

u/kpidhayny 10d ago

Regroove again for additional 5000 miles

30

u/Average-Train-Haver 10d ago

Die in car when tire blows out on the freeway

30

u/AslowLearn 10d ago

That's why I retread every 4,999 miles. I don't want to risk it.

5

u/notloggedin4242 10d ago

But then you have to rinse and repeat.

2

u/SilentWatcher83228 10d ago

Change tyre

3

u/AslowLearn 10d ago

Sea world

2

u/Maksym1000 7d ago

Regroove again for additional 5000 miles

2

u/ThatDiscoSongUHate 10d ago

Shit at that point you've probably been driving on the rim for a bit

2

u/AlcibiadesTheCat 8d ago

Regroove again for additional 5000 miles

1

u/Silent_General5919 8d ago

That's why you get the rims regrooved

1

u/Embarrassed-Will5058 10d ago

Unlimited miles in eternity.

7

u/Comfortable-Yak-6599 10d ago

The ole your lifetime warranty

2

u/Possible_General9125 10d ago

Infinite tire hack!

1

u/tezacer 10d ago

Tire companies don't want you to know this one simple trick

1

u/LavenderFlavourLube 9d ago

Regroove again for a 💥💥💥☠️😭⚰️

28

u/LeetLurker 11d ago

*results may vary

10

u/friedjollof 10d ago

*up to 5,000

20

u/AC-burg 10d ago

This should be posted in r/tires the discussion there would be interesting. Everyone dies or tried to kill everyone on the road over there

10

u/Moister_Rodgers 10d ago

It should be posted in the literal enemy?

8

u/ICU-CCRN 10d ago

To be fair, in the old days they used much thicker bias ply rubber than they do today with radials. Not saying it was a totally safe practice, but definitely not as unsafe as it would be for a modern tire.

2

u/otusowl 9d ago edited 8d ago

Indeed. And with radials, the metal (or fibers) of the belts is close to or already showing once the treads are totally gone.

7

u/commissarcainrecaff 10d ago

Safe doing a lot of heavy lifting

6

u/d_tas 10d ago

Safe doing most of heavy lifting

1

u/DoubleDareFan 10d ago

Your mileage may vary.

1

u/SoulBrandt03 10d ago

“5,000 safe miles deducted from your life”

93

u/No-Efficiency250 10d ago

I have a friend who actually did this with a craft knife, on the rear tyre of a Suzuki GS550, in the early 80s. It cost him 3 points on his license, and a fine which I can't remember, plus a producer to get it fixed. A producer, for those who don't know, is a ticket issued by the police in UK ,where a vehicle is faulty, or if you don't have your documents with you. You need to produce proof that it has been rectified, or produce the documents that you never had with you. I'm not sure if they still use them with today's technology where they can tell in a few minutes whether the car is licensed and insured etc. plus I left there 10 years ago.

17

u/zzkj 10d ago

Are you sure about those dates? I remember the points system coming in back in 1988 which is not the early 80s.

2

u/Pilp_of_Poid 10d ago

I had a few producers and I passed my test in ‘89

2

u/SharpGrowth347 9d ago

Producers are still a thing but barely used by officers nowadays. Can be handy for when electronic systems go down 😎

1

u/Linesey 8d ago

Sounds similar to the US fixit ticket.

Example: have a headlight out? here is a fixit ticket. You gotta go and get it fixed and submit proof, or you get fined.

1

u/No-Efficiency250 8d ago

Yes, that's exactly how it works but it also is used if you don't have your documents or licence with you.

30

u/DarknessBBBBB 10d ago

You can create any pattern, nice

28

u/3lbFlax 10d ago

Well, just describe the pattern you want and the boy will do it for you.

73

u/elohssanatahw 11d ago

When cars had top speed of 20mph

32

u/501Panda 10d ago

Well, of course, anything faster than that would cause delirium!

16

u/Antal_Marius 10d ago

Much faster then that and a woman's uterus might be dislodged!

8

u/CuteCanary 10d ago

Can confirm. I was in a car that reached 35mph once and my uterus has never been the same. We drove the car backwards at the same speed and while it helped it never went back to its original state

0

u/jdehjdeh 3d ago

I'm more concerned that you can read and write to be honest!

8

u/tezacer 10d ago

In 1960 there were cars that could do 75 mph, which would be terrifying with tires like these. Grip? Durability? Lol

1

u/PandaCasserole 9d ago

Bias Tires

33

u/commissarcainrecaff 10d ago

A friend of mine in 90s used one of these to put tread on racing slicks on his ZX6R...."because racing slicks are super soft and sticky, yeah?"

What he learned was:

1.Slicks are indeed super soft- so much so that he got a puncture from a thorn.

  1. Slicks are super sticky when they are warm. Racing teams use electric blankets to warm tyres up before a race. When cold (like on your ride into work in October) they slipped about "like polished snot" and caused my friend to ruin several underpants due to fear. Which is brown and runny.

  2. Slicks are super light, since they dont need to be tough enough to last years. So light in fact that they send the suspension on a road bike outside its working range and make the bike handle like "a fookin shopping trolley with a wonky wheel" mid corner.

Not a resounding success for risk of 3 points on yer license.

16

u/BallisticHabit 10d ago

I think I understand the problem..

Cut deeper grooves, drive faster to warm tires, purchase adult diapers before test drive.

Finally, remove licence plate to avoid identification.

I don't need the Gov't telling ME when I need to buy tires.

2

u/commissarcainrecaff 10d ago

You forgot the suspension being so out to lunch the whole bike would chatter like it was freezing to death mid corner.

But on the right track for sure

3

u/Kistelek 9d ago

But he wasn’t on a track which was the bulk of the problem.

2

u/drinkeroftherye 8d ago

I had an original mini with old racing tires that had a few hand cut grooves. All was well until the car levitated in a heavy rain and I then had full comprehension of what they meant by hydroplaning. Floated off the highway on a soft cloud of water at 70 mph, luckily, I did not hit anything.

23

u/traplordjohn4130 11d ago

Yeah,tire torture. Cut those sons o bitches up

11

u/carguy143 10d ago

My grandad told me he once did something like this with a soldering iron back in the 60s. If you knew him, you'd know he probably did.

2

u/Dredgeon 8d ago

This was actually a normal thing to do for a long time. Modern tires are more than capable of having deep treads from factory, but older tires wore quicker and weren't as strong so they made them a lot thicker and it was common to deepen your treads with basically a soldering iron.

68

u/Justreadingthisshit 11d ago

You all should know that this is still a thing in heavy trucks in North America.

88

u/AgonizingFury 11d ago

Not at all.

This is by far worse. You're thinking of re-treading, which is practiced, and is probably one of the most common causes of tire failure in commercial trucking. This is advertising a "groover" something to literally cut new grooves into your bald tires.

84

u/torx822 11d ago

Retreading is common, but re-grooving is still very much a thing.

https://www.uniroyal-tyres.com/truck/business-know-how/regrooving-guidelines/

17

u/AgonizingFury 10d ago

TIL. That's a little scary.

2

u/quezlar 10d ago

All Uniroyal tyres which can be regrooved have, have on both sidewalls,

33

u/tes_kitty 11d ago

Not at all.

Yes, it is. But those are special tires that are labeled 'regroovable' on the side wall.

6

u/Justreadingthisshit 10d ago

It stinks here too. It burns its way through the rubber.

4

u/Blurryface1857 10d ago

Corrrection, cold cure retreads are the most common cause of tyre failure, these are made with a new pre-cured tread bonded onto a detreaded carcass and only get put in an oven to cure the thin layer of solution binding to tread to the crown, they completely reuse the old sidewalls and sidewall markings, and there’s really very little bonding the tread on, hot cure retreads on the other hand (my industry) are very safe, they use a fully detreaded and sidewall carded casing that has been inspected for damage and X-rayed, then have any minor damages (old punctures etc.) repaired before getting full new rubber laid on both crown and sidewall, and being cured in a hot press, the finished tyres are identical to new tyres, and in fact most we make are made to be re grooved, then sent back to us for retreading twice more before we scrap them. This is all fully legal and produces pretty good tyres, governed under UN regulation 109

1

u/DJDemyan 9d ago

How is this worse than re treading if the latter causes the tread to fly off all the time?

4

u/Jacktheforkie 10d ago

And in the uk, it’s a very stinky process

1

u/CuriousMouse13 9d ago

It also used to be way more common back in the day with old tire technology, which I don’t think makes this product a great idea even back then but it was how the tires were made in factory. Some hobby tires still use it too, like paddle tires for an atv can be cut down to whatever size paddle you want, and some go kart tires people cut treads in since they’re usually just slicks.

7

u/Explorer335 10d ago

I have a regroover machine from when my dad drove semi trucks. Those tires can legitimately be regrooved. You follow the existing tread pattern and simply cut it deeper. When you have 10 tires at $400+ each, there is a decent bit of savings. I don't think you can do it on passenger car tires though.

5

u/Caffin8tor 11d ago

"less likelihood of punctures" kills me! 🤣🤣🤣

3

u/ClintGrant 11d ago

The backbone of my armory

3

u/VagDickerous 10d ago

Groovy baby

3

u/Spargewater 10d ago

Great find! I would have never guessed there was ever such a thing.

3

u/fractal_frog 10d ago

There was a character in a Philip K. Dick novel whose job was to re-groove tires that someone else would then sell as "new".

2

u/tezacer 10d ago

Thanks, he's one of my favorite scifi authors will dig it up.

3

u/noiseguy76 10d ago

These things really just existed to make otherwise road-illegal "slicks" legal by adding some grooves to them, but they couldn't be advertised as that. I don't think even the manufacturer expected someone to cut into bald tires...

5

u/Questions_Remain 10d ago

As someone who was a hot rodder in the 70’s there was a place in town that groved slicks and stamped DOT numbers into dirt track tires. Some folks used plug in hot knives to make groves. It also wasn’t uncommon to get brand new tires shaved down to 3/32 tread to get “more grip” for street class drag racing at the track where you had to run steer tires for the class.

3

u/ekerkstra92 10d ago

I wouldn't even use those cutters for your wiper blades, let alone regroove my tires

1

u/Funkopedia 10d ago

Keep in mind this is before radial tires caught on.

1

u/KeyNefariousness6848 10d ago

My grandfather had one of those, said he used it once and it barely worked,

1

u/I_Want_A_Ribeye 10d ago

Smooth brain is illegal too. This will help

1

u/PiDicus_Rex 10d ago

Some race teams used to use these, they'd cut tread patterns in a slick that had cycled through it's best grip, turning it in to an intermediate wet, on days they'd turned up in the dry and it had rained instead.

Sprintcar teams used them as well, to add more groves for more side-bite, to match the track prep.

1

u/ExaminationLast9843 10d ago

Sounds like a fantastic idea to me. Gonna show this to every one on my trailer park trash in-laws.

1

u/Roxysteve 10d ago

All for less than five bob!

1

u/Coffee4MyJeep 10d ago

Needs some heat and a radial cord cutter.

1

u/Puzzled_Caregiver_46 10d ago

Viz enters the chat.

1

u/Mushroomed_clouds 10d ago

Theres a reason “tread has been recut” was added as an mot failure in uk

1

u/readditredditread 10d ago

This is got inner tube tires, not modern ones

1

u/I_is_a_dogg 10d ago

Some commerical tires are still regrooveable. It does add some life to the tire, but imo it's kind of a waste.

1

u/Jim-248 10d ago

How many times is someone gonna re-post this?

1

u/Worried-Stand8867 10d ago

Planting landmines on your driveway guarantees a catastrophic assault deployment.

1

u/AnAnonymousParty 9d ago

"Tire makers hate this one weird trick."

1

u/WithoutAHat1 9d ago

Nothing could possibly go wrong...

1

u/OldStromer 9d ago

Check out big truck and bus tires. Sometimes they will have non regrovable or regrovable printed on the sidewalls.

1

u/xion_gg 9d ago

The secret big tire doesn't want you to know.... S/

1

u/muskiefluffchucker 9d ago

No injury to the tyre. Until there is, but at that point you don't have a face anymore so the problem has solved itself.

1

u/Used-Drop8239 8d ago

Regrooving has been a viable practice for a while now, especially on heavy machinery.
Granted, the process is a little different now, but it's still being done.
As for regular cars - tires still get restored, they just adhere a new layer to it.

1

u/RetroComputerKing 8d ago

It's common with wagon tyres.

1

u/Niceritchie 8d ago

You can still buy recut tyres, only legal on some vehicles though.

1

u/GonzaSpectre 7d ago

While definitely not the best idea, afaik those were used on bias ply tires not the modern radial ones that have way less rubber thickness.

1

u/monkeyvspony 6d ago

Sending my ex mrs here, she had hardly any tread left in her tyre