Technical older vintage tires? are they good enough ?

well i found what i hope was a good buy today, i bought 4 brand new 3'' wide whites 6.00 x 16 for my studebaker. these tires are 20 yrs old but have never seen daylight, they've been in a shed still wrapped in plastic from new ! since the old stude wont see 60mph im figuring these will be ok since they have tubes anyways. the tires are still soft not hardnend at all and no weather checking since they have been inside. i bought them 4 for the price of one so i thought "what the hell"
whadya think ?

 

I would not run steel belted radials that are that old...but those will probably be ok.

I expect you'll get some scary stories from a few of the guys here.

 

yea thats exactly what my "tire guy" said, so i bought 'em. bias ply should prolly be ok since this is a bone stock car and never gonna be fast just a cruiser. any more opinions?

 

I have the original BF Goodrich "Silvertowns" on my '48 Seagrave pumper. The truck is stored inside and I make sure the tires are well taken care of (kept clean, properly inflated, and use tire dressing). Sixty nine years, 5200 miles and they still look good and run good.

 

Not exactly the same, but I have some bias plys on my trailer that are at least 30 years old, maybe older. They have became hard with age though and have started chunking, so I will be getting rid of them soon.

 

Russian Roulette and plain stupid. If you kill yourself. Its on you. Think about the other people you will kill on the road. Not worth it.

 

Hi. In 2013 when I purchased my 46 Chevy Coupe it had a set of 5 600/16 Allstate wide white bias ply tires with only around 1,000 miles on them. How long has it been since Sears offered these??? I figured the previous owner installed them in 1990 when he restored the car a bit with new paint, upholstery, front end and brake rebuild.
Well I drove the car with them for several thousand miles with a max speed of 50 - 55 MPH. I live way out in the country so I do a lot of hwy. miles. After a thousand or so miles one day something went to thumping so I stopped & looked and one of the tires was separating diagonally across the thread. It had about 2 inches free. Drove it home slowly and put that tire on the spare but as I had two leek long tours coming up in about a month I ordered & installed a set of the Coker Classic bias profile radials. 600R16 for front and 700R16 for the rear. These are great and now do not weave all over the road like the bias ply tires did. It holds a straight line as well as any new car.
When I took the old Allstate's off I swapped out 3 for some stuff with a couple of my antique car club members who used them as spares on their parade & show cars. I still have 2 of them, 2 of which is the one that was separating but even it would work for a spare on a show only car. These 2 are still mounted and next time I have to go to the tire shop I plan on un mounting them as I have use for those 2 wheels. I plan to get two hub - wheel adapter spacers and install them with new tires on my teardrop trailer so I will have matching tires and car spare will work for trailer also. I am including a photo of the car with new tires and 1990 paint job.
Jimmie

 

Any tire can fail at any time; witness the mid 70's Firestone 500 debacle. Everything in life is subject to the rules of probability. You have to use your judgement on things like this. Given the appearance, performance, and use of my Seagrave, I have decided that the most prudent course is to continue using these tires. Is there I chance I will kill myself or someone else? Maybe an infinitesimal one, but I have decided to take it. I may also be struck by lightening and killed, but I still go out in a storm when it's necessary. These black and white pronouncements of certain doom are quite overblown.

 

Still in wrap and not exposed to the sun? I would not have a problem or worry over it. Nice buy.

 

Yes, they are. If they were true, none of us would be alive today!

 

I rolled a brand new company Explorer 3 times summer of 2000. One of those Firestone tires exploded on the driver front at 80mph. With less than 4k miles on the truck. I am only alive because I had my belt on and it was on a stretch on interstate with no drains or bridge embankments.

Put a strangers life at risk for vanity is stupid and childish. If something happens someone will sue the HELL out of you and family and rightly so. Just search the board for crash pictures. Rods turn into tin foil in a wreck. Stupid risk. Max life is 6 to 10 years depending on the manufacturer. Anything over 10 years should be wall hangers or dock bumpers.

 

You are talking about steel belted radials, right?

Are they identical to bias ply tires?

 

My understanding is that rule applies to radials only, especially in very hi temp areas. Never seen anything stating that it applied to bias ply.

 

The correct answer is 'it depends'....

All this hoopla over 'tire expiration' came out of the Ford Explorer/Firestone debacle of the late '90s. One of the suspected causes was tire age, so various studies were done to determine if this was true (as it turns out, the issues with the Explorers was high ambient temps, a poor tire design and a too-low inflation pressure). Players included the NHTSA, Ford, and several of the major tire manufacturers. Looking for a 'worst case', the Phoenix area was chosen by the NHTSA for testing as it represented the highest average daily temperatures of any urban area in the US.

At the end of the testing, what came out of it was a 'recommendation' that six years was the maximum 'safe' tire life. This was jumped on by the lawyers and tire retailers as an easy path to assign (or escape) blame and sell more tires; but a deeper dive into the final report showed it wasn't that simple. Some salient points from that report:
1. The six-year results are based on Phoenix conditions (remember, they wanted a worst case), if you live elsewhere this time can be longer, maybe much longer.
2. While UV exposure is harmful to rubber, the main contributor to tire aging is heat. It was further found that the rate of aging went up exponentially as temps went up. So a 10% increase in ambient temps could cause a tire to age 30% faster. The hotter it gets, the faster the tire ages.
3. The NHTSA after reviewing multiple years of accident data for almost every state was unable to find a single documentable case of an accident caused solely by an aged tire. In every case, other factors were present that were more likely to be the cause. Anyone suing over a 'aged' tire failure will have a steep hill to climb to prove that was the cause as there's no data to support it.

This is why only 'recommendations' were issued by the NHTSA, tire manufacturers, and car manufacturers; it's not that cut and dried. You won't find even one tire manufacturer who will state that their product becomes 'unsafe' on a magical date, merely that you should have them checked by a 'professional'. Tire retailers have adopted this whole-heartedly, more out of seeing an opportunity to sell more tires rather than any real safety issue.

Bottom line? As always, you as the vehicle owner need to be vigilant in maintaining/checking your tires. Those of you that live in the sunbelt probably should heed those recommendations, while those of us that live in cooler climates can expect considerably longer tire life.

 

Way I see it.... I didn't know Louisiana had any 80 mph speed limits in 2000 and if you can't control a vehicle at the posted speed limit, maybe you should rethink speeding. I have had a couple of blowouts, both times pulling trailers. I never lost control. Old bias plies, may be pushing your luck a bit due to their age but maybe you can drive thru a blowout.

Sent from my Moto G Play using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

My understanding is that it's just more difficult to make a long lasting bond between rubber and steel, compared to rubber and polymers. Steel belted radials like to come apart when they get old. Bias ply tires, not so much.

If you're not comfortable running old tires of any type, then buy new ones.

I generally replace radials when they get to be 5 to 10 years old, but there are other factors. I don't have any old bias ply tires.

 

It was just south of the Wisconsin Dells exit on I90. I was going to Reedsburg, WI. It was a 2000 model Explorer. I picked it up with 30 miles on it in Dallas. I drove it to Chicago for work. The blowout happened the month after I picked up the truck. The tires were put on by the Ford factory and less than a year old. The Firestone recall did not happen until the fall of 2000. It was 100% design/material failure. That is why Firestone recalled 14 million tires.

No mater what the tortured BS you can come up with to justify it. It it STUPID to run 20 year old tires no mater the construction. 100% pure negligence for a "traditional" look on a car? That is insane.

 

Old tires are good enough to get you or someone else killed. Theres not much difference in being cheap and dumb. Using 20 year old tires hits them both. Are you sure your insurance company will pay off if you kill someone as a result of a blown 20 year old tire?

 

I'd say that it depends on what you plan to use your car for. If you were planning on any highway use I'd say don't use them. If it's just cruising to and from parades and car shows on lawns then they should be fine, and if one blows you probably won't lose control of the car.

Bear in mind that those 20 year old tires will be as hard as hockey pucks even though you can't feel it and won't have a whole lot of grip, especially in the wet.

Tubman's Seagrave story made me think about the time I saw Seattle Fire Department's collection of antique fire engines. The tires on some of them were at least as old as the ones on his, but those engines do parade duty and probably never exceed 30 mph. If they blow out probably nothing terrible will happen.

H380, barrel-rolling an Explorer on the freeway had to be terrifying. Glad you weren't hurt.

 

It's pretty stupid to be driving any old car, under any conditions. That doesn't seem to stop most of us from doing it.

From the story about Firestone tires, it sounds like NEW tires are more dangerous than old ones!

 

Old tires MAY be bad, but so is putting 400 HP, in a car based on 75+ year old technology, like the average Hot Rod. Isn't THAT a risk? Any thing can happen, at any time. I think if the OP really drives like he says he will, he MAY be okay.

 

20 years ago was 1997.

 

They were new when the tire blew. Age had nothing to do with it.

 

I don't know about y'all but cars I build are not based on 75 year old technology. They are built for safety, performance, reliability and comfort.

 

Good for you.

 

Radials vs bias ply.
Apples and oranges.
392 blown Hemi in a Model A vs the stock banger.
Apples and oranges.
The speed limit in Wisconsin on I-94 was probably 65 mph. Apples
Driving 15 mph over the speed limit is oranges.
Not to mention stupid. I drive the stretch from Minneapolis to Milwaukee often and worry more about the insane drivers than I do about the tires they are on. Bias ply or radial.

 

Whats your point squirrel? Wise remarks and drive a piece of shit with old tires? That might be your choice its not mine.

 

Unless you've custom made everything in your car, it's design is BASED on old technology.

 

I drive on new tires. But if I found a set of new old stock bias ply tires from 1990, I'd rather drive on them than on 15 year old radials.

My point is that we each have our own ideas about what is too risky to do. Mine are different than yours. That's fine with me. It doesn't mean I'm stupid. It doesn't mean you are stupid.