£30M TAXI TYRE MARKET: Taxi drivers can expect to pay over £600 EACH YEAR on new tyres

Full-time taxi drivers can expect to spend over £600 each year on tyres alone according to cabbies.

Taxi drivers from across the UK discussed how many tyres they got through each year after TaxiPoint put the question to readers.

It remains hard to predict an exact taxi tyre lifespan as it depends on the model of the vehicle, how the vehicle is driven and the mileage it covers. There’s also road surface variations and the quality of the tyre itself that can affect the miles you get out of a tyre.

An electric taxi driver can expect to pay £107.94 per tyre for a standard Maxxis tyre. The average full-time cabbie can get through around six tyres each year costing over £600 in total.

The least cabbies can expect to pay for a low-quality tyre is £60 per tyre which amounts to an average of £360 annually. However, it is likely that the wear would be accelerated using cheaper tyres and more than six tyres would be required.

There are 58,000 taxi vehicles across England. The taxi tyre market in England alone is worth an estimated £30million each year.

A general recommendation is that tyres are changed every 20,000 miles or every 10 years. Tyres may need changing sooner if the tread is worn or air pressure is lost quickly.

Front tyres generally wear quicker than rear tyres and usually begin life with tread at around eight millimetres deep. However, as the tyres run along the road’s surface, friction causes the tyre to wear down. The legal limit is 1.6 millimetres.

Driving with tyres that have a tread below the legal limit is quite simply dangerous and puts both yourself and other motorists at risk.

If you are involved in an accident and the police deem the vehicle you were driving to have illegal or bald tyres, it could invalidate your insurance.

Driving with dangerously worn tyres also puts motorists at risk of a fine of up to £2,500 and three points PER TYRE on their licence.