i just picked up my new to me MX5 and with my typical misfortune ran across a rural road resurfacing gang.
Cutting a long story short, I was directed across a patch of newly laid hot tar in the full sunshine and then onto a 1/2 to 3/4 mile stretch of new gravel. When I got back onto the hard stuff, the car struggled for grip and TCS/LSD was making its grumbles known quite loudly.
I got home, which is around 1/4 mile away and all 4 wheels are around 50% loaded with tar and gravel, so I spent 2.5 hours with hot soap and water and a paint scraper. I’ve got most of the gravel (which includes glass bits) out but there’s a load of tar smeared across the rubber and clogging the sipes. to Make matters worse, I swept the drive a few times but the Tar is picking up stuff like it’s going out of fashion.
What do you reckon ? Is there any point in messing aro7nd or just get new tyres and cut my losses.
Fronts are around 5mm, rears at 3.5 to 4mm. Date stamp on the tyres is 1315 and the car is pretty immaculate underneath and wheel arches.
I’m gutted but I reckon the £320 for new Avon’s is cheaper than constant stone chips on the arches and tar all over the bodywork.
I would take each wheel off the car and use an old washing up bowl or similar to work on the circumference with petrol and an old kitchen scrubbing brush.
Tar is a heavy oil product, so will dissolve quickly in petrol.
Do the job quickly and try to keep the petrol and resulting tar/petrol on the tread or in the bowl:-)
They are doing this ridiculous resurfacing on the A10 road near where I live in Ely. Oncoming traffic showered my car with gravel
which went over the top of my car . Very dangerous. I am surprised my screen did not get smashed. Would have been better spending the money on filling the potholes I think.
The gang had gone, and there had been heavy rain immediately after the chippings had gone down, which as usual had not been swept and the chippings were heaped at the sides of the road.
I was also towing a caravan at the time so I had 6 tyres absolutely covered in tar and chippings, couldn’t even see the tread. Fortunately I was only 3 miles from home. I spent probably two full days removing it with white spirit, scrapers and a steamer. Kilos of the stuff, far more than you could get off with a pint or two of petrol. Others were affected, one I know got his car and wheels professionally cleaned and successfully claimed about £700 from the contractor via Bucks CC.
I never did get rid of the tar inside the wheel arches.
High time they stopped the tar-spraying and chipping thing. This year a road near here was “dressed” without them bothering to fill the potholes first, so we ended up with tar puddles. Unbelievable.
A very good point! I’d suggest contacting the “Highways Department” of the council concerned! Time, date and location you know, did you take photos of your gunged-up wheels?
I don’t think being directed is necessary for them to be liable if the road was open. You are supposed to drive on roads.
If they were working and there were ‘road closed’ signs then that’s a different matter; being directed would certainly clap a stopper on any arguments that you entered the roadworks negligently or inadvisably.
If as your name suggests you are in Barnsley, the responsible authority is probably Barnsley MBC rather than the county.
I was told by Bucks CC that they would reimburse any expenses I had (negligible) but they would not compensate me for my time, inconvenience, distress etc. The folk who paid someone else to do it got their money back.
I know how long it took me to get all the tar build up of my car and my other half’s car. sounds like a strong tar and glue remover will be needed on this but please do be careful with it will take off plastic trim if used in high doses in the wrong place, decontamination, clay bar, polish and waxing etc put it this way I allow for 8-9 hours on a car I’ve never cleaned before to fully remove contaminents, tar, iron, bug etc. the quicker you do all this the better though before the tar bakes on your car if you want to know more about my detailing process drop me a message. tbh I may even do a process write up in the detailing section if its of interest to folks, although I’m sure there is an ex detailler on here who probs knows even more than me.
I wouldn’t even know how to get it off the tyres but I bet its lots of scraping and solvents maybe even a wire brush will be useful. although Id definitely try get it off first as the tar will already be in the arches and I’m sure they can be cleaned off
As post #2 suggests petrol will disolved road tar, so will turpentine or white spirit. Once off wash with copious amounts of wash up liquid (neat) and rinse.
Good luck in removing the tar, your tyres sound like they have decent tread and not too old either so are probably worth the effort. I’m told that linseed oil is good for dissolving tar, although never tried it myself.
The state of UK roads is truly shocking at present, with repairs often being a quick fix rather than being done properly. We’ve had 2 new windscreens fitted this year on our Peugeot due to stones flying up from broken surfaces and causing the screen to crack and umpteen stone chips in the paint.
I’m not aware of the OP’s personal time-bound pressures to be somewhere, perhaps at all costs, but to be honest the same thing almost happened to me a few years back on the way to Tyndrum from Callander…in my newly repainted Mk1 complete with brand new Toyos. Unless an emergency or some journey of critical importance…was it worth it?
This time, we were looking at around a 1/8th mile of the stuff on a boiling hot summer’s day. I was in a Q of around a half dozen cars, but I could see the tar seeping through the gravel, and elected to pull in and see what happened to the vehicles in front. I’m glad I did…as they ended up badly clogged vehicles. I elected to turn around and leave them to it. Having safely parked some distance away pointing back the way I had just come, I watched with some trepidation as their respective vehicles put on a few kilos…not a pretty sight. The last car, a new Kia, saw the issue few feet away, stopped, and reversed out of it.
I asked the operatives if they had cars and why (as is usual practice) they had done the full width of the road instead of half to allow a period of curing. Suffice to say…it appeared from their replies that they could not possibly care less. Anyway, enjoyed a nice drive back to Kilmahog and went over the famous Dukes Pass instead. As did that Kia.
I’ve decided to bite the bullet and stump up for 4 new tyres to be fitted.
Although I’ve got the big chunks off, there is still tar smeared across the tyre surface and its pickng stuff off from the driveway that I’ve swept thoroughly at least 3 times.
I’ve plotted a slightly longer slow route to the tyre fitter, rather than 2 junctions up a dual carriageway, in the hope that it will minimise the chances of damage from picking stuff up and redirecting it at the arches and sills.
@Scottishfiver - these muppets beggar belief. They had done half of the road which is why I assumed they wanted me on the opposite side. They then redirected me onto the freshly laid stuff. I wish I’d had your foresight but, unfortunately, I was the lead vehicle. To add insult to injury, half way down, I met the tar sprayer doing the other side !
Very sorry to hear about this BarnsleyRob. Seems very unfair that you should be left out of pocket due to the apparently negligent actions of your local Council (or their contractor).
I appreciate that you’ve given up on trying to clean the tyres, however it might be worth photographing them before they’re replaced, clearly showing the amount of good tread as well as the amount of tar - & then try & claim from the Council with the photographic evidence & a copy of your receipt for the replacement tyres? They might at least give you something towards the cost of the new rubber.
Bearing in mind my experience, if they won’t pay for inconvenience, distress etc just necessary expenses, it might help if the tyre firm endorses the need for new tyres.
I must say that whilst I did get mine clean in the end, it did cross my mind that bathing tyres in white spirit for hours on end might not be good for them either.
Good luck. Fortunately I can’t really recall quite how angry I felt when this happened to me but I was seriously cross at the time after years of cleaning tar and touching in stone chips every year when they do this, to find I was driving on liquid tar which the contractor had just beggared off and left was the last straw.