Tyre Life Calculator

Work out tyre life instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.

About Tyre Life Calculator

Wear rate is tread lost divided by distance driven, and remaining life is the tread left above the legal minimum divided by that rate. Only the tread above 1.6 mm is usable, so a new 8 mm tyre has 6.4 mm of usable depth, not 8.

Formula

Tyre life

wear rate = (new - current) / km; remaining = (current - legal minimum) / wear rate

Worked example

With the default values below, Tyre Life Calculator returns Remaining life of 18,229. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

New tread depth: 8 mm
Current tread depth: 4.5 mm
Distance on these tyres: 22,000 km
Legal minimum tread: 1.6 mm

Results

Remaining life: 18,229 km
Wear rate: 1.59 mm/10000km
Expected total life: 40,229 km
Tread used: 54.7% %

Step by step

1Values used
2Tyre life
3Remaining life= 18,229 km
4Wear rate= 1.59 mm/10000km
5Expected total life= 40,229 km
6Tread used= 54.7 %

Assumptions and limits

The result is derived only from the 4 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax, fees or charges or compounding frequency into account.
Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I replace at 1.6 mm?

Wet braking degrades sharply below about 3 mm. Most safety bodies recommend replacing at 3 mm even though 1.6 is the legal limit.

Why do tyres wear unevenly?

Alignment, pressure and suspension geometry. Uneven wear across the tread is a symptom worth diagnosing before fitting new tyres.