Safety Rating Reality Check — Does Your Star Rating Still Count?
Your car was tested for its ANCAP rating on brand-new premium tyres with full tread. Nobody tells you what happens when they wear down. We calculated it using physics validated against 871+ real-world braking tests. The answer changes how you think about your next tyre purchase.
How This Tool Works
When ANCAP tests your car's braking, they use new tyres at full tread depth — typically premium brands with high wet grip performance. That test result becomes part of your star rating. But tyres wear, and not all replacements perform equally.
This tool uses our UBPS v3.7 physics engine — validated at 97.5% accuracy across 871 real-world braking benchmarks from 18 testing organisations — combined with EU Regulation 2020/740 wet grip grades to show how your braking changes and where you actually land on the safety scale.
⚡ Safety Rating Reality Check
Select your safety rating, set your tyre condition, and see where your braking actually lands.
What This Means For You
This isn't a flaw in the rating system — ANCAP does excellent work measuring vehicle engineering. The issue is that consumers assume a star rating is permanent, when it's a snapshot of peak performance under ideal tyre conditions.
The Numbers That Matter
When you combine both — worn tread AND lower-grade tyre — the effects multiply. A grade E tyre at 1.5mm on wet road can require over double the distance to stop than the premium tyres your car was tested with.
