Conti issues Ebay warning to motorists

West Midlands, UK -- Continental Tyres has warned shoppers looking for a bargain on auction site eBay to steer clear of second-hand tyres being sold on the site, after independent testing revealed that half of the used tyres listed on eBay are too dangerous for use, and if fitted to a car could put lives at risk.

The warning follows research by the company who commissioned technical specialists, Entyrety, to check the safety of the thousands of used tyres that are being sold on eBay for as little as £5.

Conti said in an 18 July statement that 20 used car tyres were purchased and tested to see how they performed in terms of legislation and safety. Alarmingly, one in five were over the recommended age limit for tyres, meaning that they could fail or 'blow out' on the road, a further 20 per cent contravened the 'Sales of Goods Act' by not having a legally-required 'E' marking, and none of the tyres fully conformed with regulation which says that they should be marked as part worn.

The company were even more shocked to find that one-in-ten of the tyres had thread depth well below the legal minimum of 2mm and two of the tyres were even bald in places. One tyre was found to have an illegal and dangerous repair and another had been stuck back together with superglue.

Conti said that the worrying thing was that eBayers only seem to be concerned with saving cash and have not considered the safety risks.

According to Conti, the problem of second-hand tyre sales has been accelerated by the new EC Landfill Directive, which has banned the dumping of used tyres on landfill. As a result, fly-tipping has become a nationwide problem with around 13 million tyres illegally dumped in the UK every year, providing rich pickings for opportunistic eBayers.ss