Hi all, I see the majority of people posting remaining tread depth photos with coins in seemingly random orientation. Though a tire gauge will give you the most accurate results (and free from most tire stores!), I understand that coins are more readily available. Hopefully this thread will be useful for postings in the "for sale" section!

The correct way to do it (at least with USA issued coins), is to have the presidents' head pointed down, towards the rubber (i.e. coin should be upside-down if measuring the tire at the 12:00 position).

Both pennies and quarters work. Here is the guide from tirerack [original here]:
<table style="width: 400px;">
<tr><td>Place a penny into several tread grooves across the tire. If part of Lincoln's head is always covered by the tread, you have more than 2/32" of tread depth remaining.</td><td><br />2/32" remaining tread depth</td></tr>
<tr><td>Place a quarter into several tread grooves across the tire. If part of Washington's head is always covered by the tread, you have more than 4/32" of tread depth remaining.</td><td><br />4/32" remaining tread depth</td></tr>
<tr><td>Place a penny into several tread grooves across the tire. If the top of the Lincoln Memorial is always covered by the tread, you have more than 6/32" of tread depth remaining.</td><td><br />6/32" remaining tread depth</td></tr>

</table>

Hope this helps those who don't know how the coin, depth gauge works!

 

great post... thank you.. i never knew the actual measurements.

 

you guys got a DIY for everything. lol Great post though.

 

Kind of useful, buy why not just use a tread depth gauge? Much more accurate, dirt cheap, and measures in 32nds and mm. I guess using the coin is better than these threads with useless and wrong information like "only been used for 10K miles, like new, 80% tread left" on a tire that is only gets about 20-25K miles at best. One of my pet peeves.

 

I agree completely, and mention this is my post. I've never gone to retail-chain tire shop that didn't give out tire tread and/or air pressure gauges for free. (if not free, should be <$5)

Like B.Betty mentions, it's not in the buyers' best interest see sellers throw out random, non-sensical numbers in the for-sale section (or even coins in the wrong orientation). The intent of this thread is to get more consistent/believable/~accurate numbers from those sellers not interested in acquiring a tire-guage for whatever reason.