It must be due to modern motoring conditions. My Dad used to buy remoulds in the 60s, but back then it wasn’t the case that any family car could comfortably reach motorway speeds, as they can now. We had a Ford Popular 100E which would just about touch 60 mph but most of our cruising was at about 45-50. I think that was true of most cars and the way most people drove. The motorway network wasn’t as widespread then as it is now either. Where I live, there is a motorway to most destinations and I drive at the speed of the general flow of traffic. I wouldn’t dream of fitting remoulds with that type of driving.

I had my own adverse experience with a remould. I had a 105E Anglia which I drove to Switzerland in about 1970. Whilst there I got a puncture which was unrepairable and the garage guy gave me an old tyre which he thought would get me back to England - I don’t remember why I couldn’t use the spare wheel. The tyre was fine, but a few weeks later, by which time I should have replaced the old tyre but hadn’t, I was driving down the M20 somewhere near Maidstone when I began to feel as though I was driving over regular joins in the road surface - that familiar bump, bump, bump sensation. When I arrived at wherever I was going I had a quick look around the car and discovered that the tyre the guy in Switzerland had given me must have been a remould and had shredded around the tread.

Looking at photos of cars from the 60s and 70s I am amazed at the puny tyres we drove around on, compared to the fat equivalents that keep us safe nowadays. When I was in my teens and eagerly anticipating car ownership, my mates and I used to drool over minis and Anglias with lowered suspension and 5 and 6J rims, which protruded beyond the wheel arches.. My Audi came with lowered suspension and 8.5J rims, which I’d love to have a laugh about with my mates. Sadly, I have long since lost touch with them.

When our son was learning to drive, his first car was a 1996 1.4 Renault Megane. Lovely little car. I bought a pair of remoulds for that to save a few bob, possibly Colways as they were generally well-regarded at the time. IIRC he drove it a couple of times before I did with them on, but the first time I drove it it felt incredibly unstable on the bendy bits. I had them ripped off asap and a pair of decent tyres fitted. Sold them on to someone who wanted them for rallycross use. I guess you never know anything about the basic carcasses with remoulds, you could put two unsuitable tyres on the same axle and end up with a lethal combination. It taught me to respect the fact that tyres are the only the contact with the road, and never ever cut corners on them (so to speak!).

One of the 2 companies named in that Guardian article, C-tyres, is a general mail order tyre supplier, and their website doesn't mention remoulds at all.

I suppose if you asked they might supply them, but perhaps it isn't good image-building to mention this on the website.

I did also read that 90% of aircraft tyres are retreads, even on the largest airliners.

You're comparing bananas with elephants. Aircraft tyres are a completely different proposition.

Elephants may not really be very much like bananas but they do really very much like bananas.

Remoulds went out of use in passenger car tyres at the same time as cross ply tyres.

I dont think this is true.

You could be right edithgow, its a good 30 years since I had any involvement so things could have changed, I don't know but in the late 70s and early 80s there were no remould radial car tyres. Maybe there are better processes now.

Truck tyres a a whole different ball game and their high cost is a big incentive to get more to of them. Some of the tyres we made were sold as retreadable but that meant there was enough rubber under the visible tread to cut a new tread pattern when the original had worn off. done with a heated V shaped knife.

So that might explain why you quite often see whole sections of lorry tyres by the roadside.

Quite frightening if the operators continue the cost-cutting into skimping on maintenance of their lorries. Drivers who are less clued-up than you, GB, might never know this was happening.

Not saying first use tyres can't blow out, the issue is usually a not noticed puncture causing overheating, but i can't actually recall a single incident in my usage of a non remould going bang.

My employer is one of the most genuinely (not just an image for public consumption) responsible operators out there, nothing allowed below 3mm, last tyre issue i found a hired in trailer tyre going down when i stopped for a MSA break, after the inevitable investigation because we don't have tyre issues that proved to be a nearly new remould that had been wrongly fitted by an outside contractor following a previous puncture out on the road, and yes the whole tread and carcass were separating hence the deflation so had i not stopped that would have blown or at least shredded the tread within a few miles.

I recall buying some new Kingpin remoulds for off-road use around ten years ago. I believe the company folded around then.