Consumer watchdog DECO has sounded the alert over Portugal’s used-tyre market – warning that it pays no attention to quality or safety, and leaves customers totally unprotected.
“The possibility of acquiring a product that respects safety criteria appears to be a question of luck,” explains the association in a report published today.
DECO’s alert centres on the need for new laws “like those that exist in other countries”, writes Expresso.
Sellers should be made responsible for their tyres; accident reports should always allude to the quality of the tyres of vehicles involved, and ASAE – the country’s health and safety authority – should be dispatched to carry out random checks.
DECO stresses that the belief that used or reconditioned tyres can somehow offer a saving to drivers is a “myth”.
“It works out more expensive to buy used tyres than new ones,” it explains, adding that used tyres can often be “ovalised” through extensive use, and unable to be properly balanced, while others “only touch the road surface” in the centres.
DECO’s research comes from a study of 89 tyres, of which 50 (over 56%) flagged “grave safety failings” that should have rendered them unfit for sale altogether.
“Various showed profound inequalities in width measurements of the same tyre, and others had lateral repairs, with tears and the metallic structure of the tyre visible. Seventeen were over 10 years old and one pair was 19 years old.”
