Click the link for a VERY informative news report with info we all should know about the shelf-life of tires: http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4826897
Thanks Timm. The video is great and presents critical safety information that not a lot of people know about. It's been the subject of posts and one thread before, but I think it's worth bringing up often. The short of it is that a lot of tire places sell tires that are so old and dry that they're extremely dangerous --- they can literally fall apart on you and cause a fatal accident. But you can and should check to see when your tire was manufactured by reading the date code on the side of the tire. The date code is 4 digits, with the first two being the week of manufacture and the second two being the year of manufacturer. For example, I have Goodyear TripleTreds on my car. The date code says "2207", i.e., they were manufactured in the 22nd week (May) of 2007 -- just two months prior to my ordering them from TireRack.com. It's no guarantee, but my guess is that you are more likely to get recently manufactured tires from a high volume, online seller like TireRack.com, rather than from a brick and mortar tire shop.
Thank YOU, Tom This was news to me. You did a great job of explaining the concern to folks who may not watch the video!
As an example of dry rot, the work truck at my hobby farm is 26 years old. Kept indoors the vast majority of its life, and mechanically in excellent shape. The spare tire is original, it was a Firestone. I noticed last summer it kept losing air, and since I can't recall if it had ever been used, still checked it over for nails, etc. Nothing There were many small cracks in the sidewall, however. Took the tire off, fired up the air compressor, started filling and BANG it failed pretty violently. The sidewall ripped all around The tread looked like new, but it was obvious the tire would have been extremely dangerous if actually used on the road
In the movie A Christmas Story, Jean Sheppard says "My old man's spares were tires in the academic sense. They were round. They were once made of rubber." I love that line. The spare tire in the movie was so bald and shiny that you could see a reflection. Tom
On my 62 Corvair, I have vintage Allstate wide whitewall Bias tires. At least 40+ years old. My 73 T-Bird, Firestone 721s from 1978, I could go on..............10 collector cars, only 2 with tires newer than than 3 years old. I think a lot of this is propaganda so people will buy new tires out of fear.
The "propaganda" isn't as much driven toward how old the tires are on your car (though it is a factor), it's focused more on the retailer selling "new" tires that are actually several years old, leaving people to believe the tires on their vehicles are much "younger" than they really are. I can vouche for dry rot on bicycle tires - when inflating to 70-80psi, the sidewalls gave out on my Specialized Armadillo tires last year - they were 6 years old, and the tires had seen significant sun. They weren't even close to worn. Different use case, but just as note worthy as these were not your cheap Walmart tires. As our cars spend a fair amount of time outside, I'd be leery of any "old" tire on our cars. The 2002 is getting close to needing a new set of Dunlop SP10's, but aside from quick tread wear, the tires are cracking significantly to the point where, even if tread depth was sufficient, I'd replace them for fear of dry rot failure. On some older tires on other vehicles, I've seen where the tread had started to separate from the sidewall before the tread had been completely worn to limits.
Backing up what Boo said earlier, here's the thread from a little while back where this topic was also discussed: http://priuschat.com/forums/care-maintenance-troubleshooting/50992-aged-tires-driving-hazard.html A real eye opener. Caveat emptor
Rubber ages so a tyre, even if it hasn't been used at all, will still degrade and will be just as hazardous as bald tyres (not due to tyre grip but due to cuts and abrasions due to stiff old rubber forced to flex)
Is it just me or does the date code appear to be written differently on the integrities? Can't find any 4 or 3 digits grouped together.
