Tire Age: Safety Hazard - Excessive Paranoia - or Sales Promo

Platonic Solid · Sep 10, 2009

Aged Tires: A Driving Hazard? - ABC News

After watching this lengthy ABC News story on the potential hazards of driving on tires older than 6 years (from date of manufacture) I find myself wondering if this is a real safety hazard, excessive safety paranoia, or a ploy by tire manufacturers to get us all to buy new tires.

oh9mustang · Sep 10, 2009

depends on how fast you drive. Even a new tire that is rated for 100 MPH may have problems at 120 mph. If you drive around the city at 30mph you can drive on bald tires, after all what is going to happen if one goes flat, You stop and walk home. As long as you don't go past the tires ratings you should be fine. Tires older than 6 years have 60 - 70 thousand miles on them, They should be changed. If you drive 1,000 miles a year, then you will have no problem keeping the tires longer than 6 years.

Platonic Solid · Sep 10, 2009

oh9mustang said:
...Tires older than 6 years have 60 - 70 thousand miles on them, They should be changed. ...

I think the point of the story is that the tire could easily be older than 6 years from date of manufacture when we're buying it as "new".

oh9mustang · Sep 10, 2009

A tire with no miles on it is new even if it's several years old. As with any thing you buy, if it's several years old it still may be new. As long as it's not used.

rbohm · Sep 10, 2009

age can be a problem if dry rot is present, regardless of how many miles are on the tires. if no dry rot, then the tires are going to be fine until they are worn out.

raleighstang65 · Sep 10, 2009

I had an old Pathfinder several years ago. It had BFG All Terrain tires that were about 6-7 years old. One day I came out and had a flat, the side wall had cracked from dry rot. Still plenty of tread left on them but I replaced all 4 for safety's sake.

RGS0907 · Sep 10, 2009

It is a problem

oh9mustang said:
A tire with no miles on it is new even if it's several years old. As with any thing you buy, if it's several years old it still may be new. As long as it's not used.

I can't agree with that. The tires have a certain life if they are used or not. It is a real good idea to check the date codes on any new tire that you buy & if you ever plan to go 80 (we all do!) then you don't want a tire that is more than 6 years old. It is better to own new, cheap tires than old expensive ones.

D.Hearne · Sep 10, 2009

oh9mustang said:
depends on how fast you drive. Even a new tire that is rated for 100 MPH may have problems at 120 mph. If you drive around the city at 30mph you can drive on bald tires, after all what is going to happen if one goes flat, You stop and walk home. As long as you don't go past the tires ratings you should be fine. Tires older than 6 years have 60 - 70 thousand miles on them, They should be changed. If you drive 1,000 miles a year, then you will have no problem keeping the tires longer than 6 years.

Where'd you get tires that last 60-70 thousand miles ? I want some of those.

D.Hearne · Sep 10, 2009

Platonic Solid said:
Aged Tires: A Driving Hazard? - ABC News

After watching this lengthy ABC News story on the potential hazards of driving on tires older than 6 years (from date of manufacture) I find myself wondering if this is a real safety hazard, excessive safety paranoia, or a ploy by tire manufacturers to get us all to buy new tires.

It all depends on how they're stored, how they're driven and how many miles are on them. It's not a one size fits all deal.

ddonaca351 · Sep 11, 2009

...many years ago were down at sand lake, there's a news crew there filming a network piece on threewheelers. ( we found out later on how DANGEROUS they were

)

We ask if they want some shots of us jumping, roosting berms, etc... (built 350x's, 250r's on methanol, tecate w kx500 motor in it, etc... and guys who know how to ride em)

The camera guy tells us (after the reporter lady walked away) they were instructed to only film people riding without gear, drinking and riding, crashing, etc.

Moral of the story, don't believe everything you see on the news. They aren't trying to report the truth, they are trying to sell add time. The more sensational the story, the more viewers, the higher the price they get for their add time.

just saying...

ron67fb · Sep 11, 2009

http://www.stangnet.com/mustang-forums/757862-20-20-story-about-old-tires-important.html

2+2GT · Sep 11, 2009

As others have said, it's the condition of the tires that matters. Anyone who tells you to replace 6 year old tires because they are, well, 6 years old, is trying to sell you tires.

Reporters are morons. Not one in 50 actually does any homework. Usually they just quote each other, without attribution. In school, they call that plagiarism. In the normal world, it's lying and cheating.

Remember when, NBC was doing a bit on pickup truck gas tanks? A sharp-eyed car exec noticed a bit of smoke under the truck before the impact. Seems they had rigged a model rocket engine to make sure the truck blew up. Even then, it didn't. The only fire was the fuel that splashed out of the filler neck, because they had the wrong cap on it, hitting the rocket flame.

Basically, the more you look at what passes for journalism these days, the more you want to look out a window to check when they tell you the sun is shining.

stonecoldtx · Sep 12, 2009

2+2GT said:
As others have said, it's the condition of the tires that matters. Anyone who tells you to replace 6 year old tires because they are, well, 6 years old, is trying to sell you tires.

Reporters are morons. Not one in 50 actually does any homework. Usually they just quote each other, without attribution. In school, they call that plagiarism. In the normal world, it's lying and cheating.

Remember when, NBC was doing a bit on pickup truck gas tanks? A sharp-eyed car exec noticed a bit of smoke under the truck before the impact. Seems they had rigged a model rocket engine to make sure the truck blew up. Even then, it didn't. The only fire was the fuel that splashed out of the filler neck, because they had the wrong cap on it, hitting the rocket flame.

Basically, the more you look at what passes for journalism these days, the more you want to look out a window to check when they tell you the sun is shining.

I couldn't agree more, and the notion that a new tire has a "shelf life" is as stupid as a bottle of water with shelf life (and yes, they have a date printed on them, believe it or not)!

This sort of issue has gotten WAAAAYYYY out of hand. Some of this stuff is just plain ridiculous.

The next think you know, they are going to tell you that things like glass and steel have a shelf life, and warn that sheetmetal or glass made that is "X" number of years is unsafe . . . how utterly unbelievable.

oh9mustang · Sep 12, 2009

Tire age means little unless dryrot is there,

D.Hearne
A 70,000 mile tire can be had at just about any tire store.

65ShelbyClone · Sep 12, 2009

oh9mustang said:
1.) Tire age means little
2.) unless dryrot is there,

3.) D.Hearne
A 70,000 mile tire can be had at just about any tire store.

1.) No, it does not mean little.
2.) Tires dry out and harden just fine without cracking and looking "rotted."

I actually did a back-to-back recently with BFG Radial T/A tires in the same sizes on the same car. The only difference was that one set was new and the other set was around eight years old with no cracking and nearly no miles. The old tires had noticeably less grip than the new ones. Enough to make them dangerous? Probably not. Will they fly apart at highway speed some day? I have no idea. My point is that time ages tires just as well as use.

3.) He said tires that last 60,000-70,000, not tires simply warrantied for it. I have 85,000-rated Pirelli Cinturatos on my 2500lb minitruck and they are now 90% spent at 26,000. I am by no means hard on tires, either. In contrast, Michelin LTX truck tires are some the best I have seen and can actually last 60,000+ depending on how they are treated. Unfortunately, being a a truck tire, it's hard to find them in passenger car sizes.

Edster · Sep 13, 2009

The report I saw concerned LT tires on SUVs. How was the vehicle driven? Well the driver was a teenager and I know how I drove when I was a teen! I reckon the teen was thinking he had a road racer several times, he may have done some off road driving thinking had a true off road vehicle. Who knows?
I no longer trust the media and never really have as most of them are liberal pu551e5.

zookeeper · Sep 13, 2009

Today's media sells fear, pure and simple. The tires on my wife's '69 Corvette were put on about 1987, yet with only about 12,000 miles on them since then, they look new from any angle. Are they something I'd want to run at Bonneville? Probably not. Are they good enough for that couple times a year when the car is driven? Absolutely. Now, I presonall think trailer tires, especially with a tandem axle trailer are different, since they place HUGE loads on the sidewall, when making short turns, and weak sidewalls will show up VERY quickly.

dewdrop · Sep 15, 2009

Another thought about old tires

I worked for a chemical company that makes rubber products. Everyone can have an opinion and here is mine. There is dry rot that you can see and most would agree that those would be bad to drive on except in parades and low speed cruising. However if your tires have been exposed to the sun as in keeping car outdoors alot, then you may have problems that you can't see as easily. Rubber will degrade in the sun....period. As it does, and you get them hot as in high speed or just driving longer distances on hot day, you run the risk of a blowout. Personally I won't drive on tires older than 10 years. Most of them are flat spotted by then from sitting so much that they ride like crap anyway.

Just my thoughts....................

6Stang7 · Sep 16, 2009

At the end of the day, none of us can answer whether or not age is a determining factor in tire safety (unless anyone is a materials engineer who is working on this exact issue). At best, we can make guesses (some educated, some not so much).

Based on what I've learned though chemistry and materials engineering courses, tires will dry out. Everything defuses together. Place a bar of aluminum against a bar of copper, and given enough time, the two bars will become permanently attached. Same is true for oils inside tires. They will diffuse into the air, and air will diffuse into the tires. It's all depends on the rate of diffusion.

Just because the tires might look fine, doesn't mean they are. I can show you a steel I-beam that looks safe on the surface, but when inspected you find blind cracks in it. Would you be ok using said I-beam as seat? Yea, it doesn't matter if it fails. Would you be ok using it to build a bridge? Same is true for tires. If they are on a car that you drive a few times a year around town (below 35 mph), then it's not really a problem per say, because at low speeds it's easier to stop/less damage will result from a crash (although you could hit someone). Would I drive on the highway with old tires? No, why take the risk.

At the end of the day, you pay the same price for a tire made four years ago as you would for one made four months ago, so why run the risk? Make sure that the tires are not old tires wherever you get your tires from.

blown65 · Sep 16, 2009

Had some tires on my dads Camaro, showed no signs of rot. Blew the motor in the car, so it went to my sisters garage and the next week, with no motor in the car one of the tires blew out just sitting there. HUGE hole. Had that been on the top end of the track it would of been real bad.

Ill change tires more often than not when it comes to safety at 120+mph.

Tire Age: Safety Hazard - Excessive Paranoia - or Sales Promo

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