Age of your tires

Hey Hot Rodders,

what do you all do about your tires when they get old, but not worn out?

Tire companies says replace them at 5 to 7 years regardless of wear.

I have a set of tire that have never been on the road, stored in a temp controlled shop, no sunlight .. but they are 15 years old. They look like new, what is the smart thing to do?

thank you

 

Put em on your least used old car. I wouldn't put them out.

 

just don't take long trips. tires on my 61 Dodge are over 25 years old and still good tread.
tires on my latest daily were 15 years old and only about 10,000 miles. they looked perfect but I bought new ones because I drive that one all over the place.

 

Every 5 years is insane, unless they're baking in the Nevada sun all day or something. But I have replaced a few preemptively recently because they were very old, even though they weren't weatherchecked and had good treads. I've seen tires come apart randomly and it can be pretty scary and do a lot of damage, there's a limit to the risk I'll take for an old tire.

It also would depend a lot on the vehicle they're on. Some old bias-ply tires with tubes on your Model T that you toodle around town in is probably going to be fine. But I don't want to be rocketing down the highway doing 70+ and having a shitty, modern radial come flying apart because it aged out.

 

I’ll be the first to say “ tire life is BS “ . My tires were same as most new used very little , 25 plus years old . I blew a front one on the 32 at 50 miles an hour . Didn’t hurt one thing other pride . I tossed the other 3 to start on another 20 years . Hopefully next owner can replace them , if they make it that long

 

I have heard that "tires exploding" as they age is much more prevalent with radials than bias plies. Is there any truth to this?

I am in the process of ordering a new set of white stripes to replace the perfect looking 12 year old tires on my fully restored C2 Corvette. I hate to even think about the total cost if one of those tires were to "let go". You can get a decent set of 205/75R15's mail order for around $400, which is pretty cheap.

 

Tires are far cheaper than funerals.

Someone always loses.

Will it be you?

 

shhhhish…….there is only a couple of rules that NZ hasn’t taken on board from other countries.
This is one of them, - no mandatory tyre life requirements here, yet !

 

Depends on the environment. The rubber used in tires can be good for decades if the conditions are right. If they are left in direct sunlight or alowed to sit under inflated it can have a detrimental effect.

Answer is ther is no definitive life span.

 

All that says is that it is a lottery, of sorts.

 

Same as anything..

 

...One thing to consider, if you have tires that are "old", but never been mounted, some shops may refuse to mount them due to liability issues. If you do it yourself, this obviously doesn't apply.

 

Maybe..... maybe not. You may be held responsible for any damage/injury/death that is caused by failure of a tire that is outside the date code regulations. Being unaware of the rules is not a valid defence. In the litigious world we have created for ourselves, there will always be a hunt for someone to blame. Not saying I agree or like it, but it is what it is.

 

..Yeah, I may not have been clear on this. Mounting them yourself doesn't absolve you of liability. I just meant that if you mount them yourself, you can, as some shops may refuse to do so.

 

My experience tells me if I'm riding on old rubber I had best not exceed a speed that I would crash, losing control from a failure.
As far as how old is too old I cant believe that the restrictions are realistic.
The first six years that I drove all my 'new' tires were from the pile in back of the gas station. None of those had steel in them, however.

 

Tires are cheap compared to body damage, yours, someone else’s, or the vehicle’s. My luck doesn’t work that way. I’d replace them after 5 years.

 

10 years is my limit. My 61 Buick had brand new 14 year old tires. I told my tire dealer to pitch them. I have seen 12 year old tires fall apart. Chunks of rubber separated from the carcass.

Today's tires don't use pure rubber, they use a blend of elastomers that do break down over time, regardless of UV exposure. I drive my cars about 3k miles per year at freeway speeds. I'm not going to risk it. YMMV.

 

As you can see this is all over the board as to what is the magic number to get rid of tires. Like you guys I’ve seen tires 20 years old look like new and now crazing or weathering but then I’ve seen tires less that 5 years old look like they could be 100 years old and wouldn’t trust them to roll down the driveway. Ultimately it depends on the condition they are kept in and do you really want to risk it if you’re going to dive the vehicle.

I have tires on mine that are/were 20+ years old and in different storage scenarios all are Coker bias ply WWWs. My Tudor sat under the carport with a cover on it the entire time and the tires on the sunny side were cracked and crazed beyond belief. I bought new ones for it and put the old one a car in the backyard so I could roll it out to sell. Even then I was wondering if they would make the trip to the front. My woody has set in the garage semi out of the sun uncovered and the look and feel like they are ok but do I really want to drive it for a long distance or at highway speeds. I m guessing that they would be okay for city bop around driving but I’m going to swap them out for a new set just to be safe. My convertible that is buried so deep in the spare garage and hasn’t seen the light of day for 20+ years I’m going to say that they are pretty good but it has yet to be seen until I dig the rascal out later on this summer. But truth be known I’ll swap them out if I don’t sell it to foot the bill for another build.

So I look at it like this, we swap out all the belts and hoses before we start driving one if it’s been sitting for a while just to be safe, why would it be different for the tires. Yeah they cost more and it’s kinda a large expense ($1300 a set for me) but the cost and pain of insurance claims, deductibles, medical costs, attorney fees, it’s really not that bad idea to swap them out.

Okay I’m off my soapbox now, we can resume the scheduled programming

 

I replaced my 25 year old tires with new bigs and littles on my roadster. I had never checked my old tires at all. When the old tires were off, I looked them over. There was a big crack on the inside of one of them. I did drive the hell of my roadster with the old tires, but I am very thankful that I had no problems.

 

I had 16 year old tires on my truck, priced out a new fender and paint, four tires was much cheaper then one fender was going to be. Mine were garage kept, 10K miles no cracks. Sold all four on market place for $10 each, guy didn't care about age.

 

Bias ply tires with no steel belts don't seem to explode when old, the same way that steel belted radials do. I'd trust them for a couple decades if they've been maintained and stored mostly indoors.

Trailer tires are subject to a lot of stress from normal use, think about what happens to them when you turn. 5 years is as long as I'll trust them.

Radials on a seldom driven hot rod that's kept indoors are generally safe for 10 years or so.

Radials on daily drivers, get a bit iffy after 5-7 years.

But you can also just replace radials every 6 years like they say in owners manuals for new cars, and like the tire stores want you to, if you have a low risk tolerance. Of course you probably won't drive a hot rod much if you're like that, I expect.

 

FWIW: I had a brand new never on the ground spare tire on my 5th wheel explode. It was mounted on the rear bumper with no tire cover. Took out a rear window and a roof mounted clearance light. It was an 8 ply 16" radial inflated to maximum pressure. It faced west and I suspect the SoCal sun heated the tire up and raised the PSI to the point the tire failed. Or maybe it was just a piss poor off shore tire? Anyway, after the failure I always removed the spare and kept it in the shop so I'll never know the real cause of the failure. And to make matters worse I broke the replacement window installing it so I had to do the job twice.

 

I have 4 year old radial tires that start to show light cracks in the sidewalls on my DD 55 Chevy, but they also have about 25k miles on them , so they are almost worn down. Daily use in the summer and sitting out in the sun during holiday trips or at work doesn´t help any. And then there are asa good as new Goodyear power cushion F70-15s on my Riviera that must be at least 25 years old and have less than 5k miles on them. They don´t show any cracks but need a few miles to get back to a round shape after sitting a year or two. After warming up they are fine.I guess it all depends....

 

Funerals are cheaper than living as well ..

 

That 5-7 year recommendation is for daily drivers that see more exposure to the elements, and might sit outside and get dried up from sun rays. For the average hotrod that probably sees maybe 3000 on a good year, and is stored inside when not in use that's really overkill in my opinion.
I have 15 years on my oldest tires, and 5 years on the newest, and I put about 2500-3000 miles a year on my hotrods. Tires are still like new with no signs of aging. If I see any sign of cracks or dried rubber on the sidewalls they'll get replaced.

 

We all must be getting older and gentler. Back in the day seems like tires only lasted months sometimes only weeks they usually did the Cheech and Chong thing!

 

I’m a tire guy. That used to be all I did. I replace my own tires after 6 years. Seen too much damage. My ‘51 Plymo came with 35 year old radials. Goodyears that look great. I’m taking it no farther away than 6 miles to the ice cream shop before I put new tires on it

 

Two words sum up the reason to replace modern tires, especially radials, every 6 years or whatever the manufacturer suggests. Those two words are "designed inefficiency" The automotive industry spends millions of dollars developing products that will last just long enough and then start failing making you buy a new vehicle rather than repair the current one. This is no different. Tires are chemically bonded and once they figured out a way to control the breakdown of that bonding process all bets were off. While the sun has always had an effect on rubber products, adjusting the chemical properties of the tires make them go bad on cue and there is very little we can do about it. This is why tire manufacturers tell you to change them at a time interval regardless of tread depth. That is supposed to remove their liability from selling products they have designed to wear out based on time and not use.