Tyre tread to mudguard edge gap

[ten0rman]

I've just been out for my morning constitutional amble and walked past a smallish Mercedes car, parked facing the wrong way, and with it's front wheels turned out towards the pavement, ie to the right. I couldn't help noticing, in fact I looked twice, at the gap between tread and mudguard edge which appeared to be minimal, say, at a guess, 1/16". So close in fact that I could easily imagine the tread rubbing against the mudguard edge on tight turns and if there was a bump in the road surface.

I'd like to be proved wrong, but otherwise it seems potentially dangerous, certainly if it was my car I'd be rather concerned. So, any ideas anyone? Am I being silly?

Incidently, if necessary, and the weather holds, I may be able to have a better look and find the model type, age etc tomorrow morning.

ten0rman

[bungeejumper]

It's a boy racer habit to fit lowered suspension and extra wide tyres, of course. I gather that it's quite a science to know how close to the wheel arches you can get without emitting trails of burning rubber smoke through the tight bends. Although some of the wide boys apparently think that's a desirable attribute.

Good old KwikFit once managed to fit an oversized pair of tyres to the front end of my wife's car, and we didn't notice. (In our defence, our minds were distracted at the time by the fact that the mechanic had also dropped the car onto the trolley jack and put a deep dent into the sill.)

It was only four months later that the car failed its MOT because of the mismatched tyre sizes. "Oh yeah," said the Kwik-Fit manager, shrugging unapologetically, "that fitter doesn't work for us any more." It felt good to be in the hands of true professionals.

And it was only after that that we reflected on how many speeding tickets my wife might have acquired, because the bigger tyres would have been making the speedometer read low! It's a good job she tends toward cautious.

BJ

[GrahamPlatt]

Many years ago (35?) I took my (then) car to Kwikfit to replace the exhaust expansion box. The lad was having a job separating it from the pipe so got an oxyacetylene torch to apply a bit of heat… and cut through the pipe. Tried to claim it was already like that! Gaffer came out in support too. Their best offer was to replace the pipe & box at half price. Which is the last time I’ve been to Kwikfit