While I was changing my brake hoses to new braided ones, I thought I would investigate the rubbing brake stays a bit more and I think it's a more serious problem than people are suggesting.
I've posted a rather poor photograph I took with my phone showing what is happening.
If you look carefully you can see the lock stop plate attached to the chassis and you can see the polished rub mark where the outer edge of the tyre tread touches on full lock.
You can also clearly see that with the stays fitted the tyre is quite a way from the lock stop plate and that is in fact the tyre sidewall that is in contact with the stay.
The sidewall as a relatively thin and weak part of the tyre and I would much prefer that the tread corner touched the lock stop than have the side wall rubbing on something.
Also, because you can't get as much lock, the sidewall will come into contact more often than the original tread to lock stop contact.
I am almost certain this would cause an MOT fail if it was spotted and might conceivably damage the sidewall. (And might cause an insurance problem if you had an accident caused by a tyre blow out)
I need to get my head round this and decide what to do but I'm sure my car won't be the only one to have this issue.
