They've still got some life left in 'em.

I'm not proud to admit it, but that is pretty close to how my tires were last week. I finally swapped them out, but even with my employee discount i was looking at almost $700 for a set of four. Tires are expensive, and you often dont realize how bad they have gotten until it is too late. Even finding used tires is difficult these days.

That being said, going from exposed wires to fresh tires is amazing. I got in my car and immediately noticed i was sitting 3 inches higher, and it's wonderful driving a car that actually grips the road instead of just sitting on top of them.

700$!? Where are you located that tires are this expensive? Here in Austria they are between 40€-80€ per 1 tire.
- A new set of 4 tires plus alignment for my compact crossover is about $900-930 in the US.
- I paid $700 2 years ago for tires for my SUV. SUV tires are a bit more expensive - but they’re still not cheap for sedans. I’m in the USA.
- Just did this too mine were $600 for my car. They weren't even top grade tires or anything crazy. Live in u.s. Midwest
- Well he was suddenly 3 inches higher. So probably a big car/something with big tires. Almost Everything is more expensive on bigger cars.
- I'm in Ohio and drive a Subaru Crosstrek. 255/17/55 tires arent cheap. I could have gotten discount tires somewhere, but i work at a union tire plant and so i got the premium tires that i make for a living.
- Thinking more about it, what brand tires di you buy? Chinese firms have been flooding the market with cheap tires to undercut domestic union made tires in America and Europe.
- My car has AWD and 35 profile ties. It's at least 1200USD for anything that doesn't suck because I have to change all four at the same time.
How did you passed the inspection with these tires?! or is it damaged within one year?
- In the US most states don't care in California (where I live) as long as it has a cat and passes emissions your good
- I only just got the car 6 months ago, but Ohio doesn't have annual inspections
I get used tires for around $30-$40 per tire. Between $150 and $200 gets a full set with installation. They last me a few years from there, driving around 8,000 miles per year. They don't match, but I don't care.

They're slicks, just like race cars use! That must mean they're super grippy, right?

Yes, until it rains.
- No, this isn’t the grippy layer. The grippy stuf is long gone.
Yes. There's more rubber touching the road, therefore more grip.
^/s

Drive a little more and you'll have METAL tires which are the BEST!

And sparkly ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
- (⁠ﾉ⁠◕⁠ヮ⁠◕⁠)⁠ﾉ⁠*⁠.⁠✧
Once that layer is worn down, the extra grip metal braid will be exposed, and the car will have super traction.
Trains have metal wheels and are efficient. You can also be efficient by having metal tires on your car. You're welcome, FuckCars.

For all those wandering if these are slick (racing) tires, it doesn't look like it. You can clearly see the grooves worn out (bottom left) and the threads through the rubber on the left, indicating extremely worn out tires. I'm curious though as to how anyone would get their tires in this shape before a safety inspection would have made it mandatory to change them.

Many states (and presumably many countries) done have safety inspections. In the Midwest there are tons of old vehicles that would never pass an inspection out on the road
- Is that because regulations are for commies, or there's some Big Road Traffic Accident lobby profiting off people dying in shitboxes? What possible reason is there to allow such an obvious death trap on the road?
- Yep. I'm in Indiana. We don't do vehicle inspections here. People drive scary shitboxes.
Wondering**
Also looks like it's about to split.

I had a motorcycle shop tell me they were saving my tires because they'd never seen anything so overcooked. What can I say, I could barely afford the bike. It isn't running now because I can't afford to fix it. This economy is fucking terrible.

Racing slicks at home:

Some racers pay big money for "Slicks" like these.

Isn't this pretty much optimal on dry surfaces? The patterns in the tires are for draining away water, and nothing else. I mean, look at F1 tires for dry roads.

But the tiniest splash of water will send you on a rotational journy into what's straight ahead.

And those tires are wet in the picture, so it's amazing they're still alive.
On a dry surface these have more grip but the belts are exposed and any debris wouldn't bit be absorbed by the tread so I'm guessing not optimal for dry surface but very dangerous.

Tires are at their best when I can see my reflection in them, right?

You're sliding all the way to god on those bad boys

I didn't know a tire could be so smooth it casts a reflection. This must the maximum smoothnes possible.

That is quite specular.

Combine with brakes worn down to the calipers on rotors directly and you’re facing the final boss on hard mode for the prize of life

Daytoooonaaaa

Doo-doo-doo doo doo doo-doooooooo
I worked in an arcade in the 90s which had that machine.
I can hear that music in my dreams.

This is just driving on hard mode.

/s no don't do this, this is so dangerous.

Does police or yearly car inspection prior to registration not check for these? Here we need to have winter set and summer set of tires, plus that all gets checked regularly and you can't register your car if it doesn't pass technical exam.

Most everywhere here in the States has stopped doing any form of yearly vehicle examination, and the police in most places won't pull you over for anything relating to vehicle issues unless it's either seriously egregious or they have nothing better to do (sometimes not even then, like my local PD, who has been doing effectively nothing for the past 3 years ever since a police reform law was talked about.)
- Most everywhere here in the States has stopped doing any form of yearly vehicle examination
  Is this true? We have annual inspections in Pennsylvania.
- Oh wow. I could understand them not caring if only your own life was at stake, but it's not. Here we had people try to go around the inspection process, but now all the places that do these inspections (privately owned by the way) have to have live camera feeds of the vehicle from different angles and submit photos and graphs of the vehicle status before being able to issue a sticker.
  And here I am complaining about someone's light not being tuned properly while people drive with this kind of tires.

One more coat of WD-40 should do it.

Just put them in tire warmers every morning for 20 minutes. That’ll do.

TBH, that's not a bad wear pattern, aside from being as bald a cue ball. The alignment, balance, and inflation are all pretty good, the tire is just completely shot. Most of the time you'll see pretty bad wear patterns on tires that are allowed to go that far, because people that can't afford tires usually can't afford alignments either.

They must be somewhere that doesn’t salt and maintains its roads.
Does such a mystical place exist?
- Probably somewhere that doesn't snow or freeze over, and thus has reasonable maintenance costs. It's mainly ice that breaks up the roads, after all. Normal wear and tear will do it too, of course, but water freezing and expanding in the cracks makes the problem exponentially worse every time.

How the fuck do the tires even pick up the road at that point 😂

Driving on the free way?? Christ on a bike

The knobs on tires are so that water has a way to escape when a car drives over it. A completely flat Tyre has the most traction but can't handle rain. Every day Tires have a mix to handle all conditions. I may be wrong but I remember hearing this in a youtube video
- That's basically correct. One caveat is that manufactures often put gripper material on the outside, while the inside is meant only as a base and doesn't have much grip. You can't make DIY racing slicks just by sanding down normal tires. Maybe you could back when the World's Fastest Indian guy did it, but not now.
Cars on race tracks use bald tyres for more contact with the road, which gives better grip. The tread is there to guide water out so the car doesn't slide in the wet.
Unfortunately it looks like the image is of a car with bald tyres in the wet (I'm assuming that's why it's shiny).
- Also worth noting though that the main reason race cars are able to get more grip with slick tires is because the tires are made to have a very low melting (?) point. So they heat up very quickly and also don’t last very long as a result. But that heating up allows them to literally stick to the ground. Normal car tires ain’t doing that for sure.
- I think the car might have been parked overnight because it looks like there's a layer of ice coating the tire. Talk about hard mode, now every street is an ice level!
- Oooo learn somethin new every day, thanks for sharing your knowledge ❤️