Technical WWW Replacement

Less than a year old.

 

Yuppers a can of worns for sure but there are factors involved and several have been mentioned.
Where is the car stored and are the tires exposed to the sun and weather?

THE BIG ONE, how do you drive the car now and what are your plans for the next year or so? If all you do with it is toddle over to the cruise night at the burger joint across town once a week and hit a few local events within 30 miles on weekends and don't do road trips you might be safe, If you have a hot weather road trip planned I'd think new tires.
There are cars running around town with 20 radials that stay garaged most of the time and never go anywhere and don't do highway miles. My Mother's old Pontiac Vibe was one of those. 08 I think with 60K and still packing the original tires a year and a half ago. All the car ever did the last ten years she drove it was go 2.3 miles to the store and back. Sat in a carport all it's life with very little sun hitting the tires.

 

Something that most overlook is what is happening temperature-wise every time we drive our cars. As an example (using summer temps) the tires start off cool at somewhere in the 70 to 90 degree fahrenheit range. After a decent trip, lets say 30 minutes, the tire temperature could be 150 to 180 degrees. We then stop and it gets to cool down again......... and then off we go on our next journey, pumping heat into the tire again. It will happen whether you live on Pluto, or if you live on the surface of the sun. This temperature cycling has an effect on the breakdown of the rubber compounds and adhesives. It will gradually make the tire harden. Tires will harden just by age, but the heat fluctuations make the process faster. Even if we ignore the infrequent occurence of tire failure due to belt separation, the hardening of the rubber compound is in itself enough reason to not let your tires to get too old........ even if they "look good", they may not be. A hardened tire is not what you want in wet or icy conditions or in emergency situations. Let's not even think about an emergency situation when it's wet or icy. I find it hard to understand why anyone with a love for cars and driving would be happy with underperforming or dangerous tires, yet spend so much time and effort to make everything else Mickey Mouse. We all want our rides to go and handle well, but tire age seems to slip through the cracks and not be part of the equation.

 

I bought a set of Diamond Back WWW 13 years ago and had the on the car 6 years. Took them off for a tire/wheel style change. They were stored in a cool shade shed covered; just put them back on. . Very conscience of age and radials. In town no hyway driving. Hard to justify new yet. They have about 7k miles and of course look perfect!

 

AMEN to that! Hysteria based on research that no one takes the time to actually read!

I’m lucky I live in the Vancouver BC area which is waaay cooler than Phoenix AZ.

 

I appreciate the insight. Here in sunny southern Alberta, we have higher temps in the summer, but save for a few occasional days of driving it to work, the car sits in my garage 90% of the time. I can see how the breakdown of the rubber compound plays an important factor for sure. Throughout the cruising season, I check and double check my tire pressure-most typically hovering around 35psi. As of last November when I drove it before putting it in winter storage, there were no vibrations and the tires still looked great.

 

Interesting perspective! I did have bias plys on before my radials, and I know I'm getting old and sound like an old fart complaining, but I hated the ride and the way it felt. It may have been the brand, but the 56 rode like a Caddy after the radial BFG's were installed. Did you notice a price difference between the radials vs. bias plys?

 

Yikes! That's unsettling!

 

Ah yes, that's my conundrum. They are inside the garage almost always, but are creeping to 8 years in June. The other factor is we do highway driving throughout the year, and that's what has my caution flag waving...

 

We plan on a few 200 mile round trips in the summer, then a bigger one in September through the mountains. I can see the difference, and also see we DRIVE the snot out of our 56.

 

Great, appreciate the insight, thank you! Might have to look at my options.

 

I really can't afford to change my tires that often. Bought them when I started the build because you pretty well need them to establish the look of the car and for me, it takes a long time to build anything. They are over twenty years old at this point on the one car and eight years on the other one still at the beginning of the build with zero miles. Between that and insurance on cars that get very limited use, why would we keep doing this?

 

If your cars are not currently registered you will need to have them inspected to get them registered in Alberta. Your tires will fail inspection.

 

Very true, that's the conundrum I'm in. I drained my savings account for some personal emergencies and now I'm looking at bare minimum of $1600 CAD for a new set of WWW.

 

Luckily my 56 p***ed inspection way back in 1996 (different tires of course) but I get what you're saying. In fact it was my mechanic car buddy who brought my tire situation to my attention. I had driven on all sorts of dealership 'take offs' for years until I bought these new WWW in 2018. Here I was thinking "oh these are the last tires I'll need to buy for this ol' car". Little did I know...

 

Yeah I am going to have to replace the tires on the truck in my avatar to get it inspected this spring. It will just be driven around town so I am highly tempted to just buy the cheapest tires I can find to p*** inspection and then put the widewhites back on afterwards. Otherwise it's going to be a $2000 hit for sure.

 

Seeing as how this has become an Alberta thread, I didn't have to get my car inspected to get it registered and insured. The nice lady at the registry office looked at the appraisal and said I was good. And no, I didn't try to p*** a fast one on her; I really asked if it was ok.

 

Tire life? Maybe a trip back in time could shed some light on the subject. From 1972 through 1979, I worked at a gas station that probably mounted almost as many tires as the biggest local tire store. I did a lot of that tire mounting. I sold a lot of tires during those early radial tire days.
During my senior years in high school (1974), in the power mechanics shop (auto shop), for us seniors, each of our quarterly report card grades hinged on a written a term paper covering a chosen automotive subject. One of my 4 topics was covering tire construction and history.

In the late 60s tire tread life became more important. Nearly all bias ply tires were wore out in 25,000 - 30,000 miles. The tread was pretty much gone. The cause of the short mileage was the bias ply design. The sidewalls were stiff with very little flex, so as the tire tread rolled across the ground, the contact patch of the tire on the ground was actually pinching the tread surface, causing the quick wear. To combat the shore tread life, the tire companies figured out that if the added "belts" around the tires, under the tread, the tire tread would wear longer, and they could make the tires wider without excessive wear. Much like the tire case on a bias ply tire, the belt material also ran at about a 40 degree angle, so two belts, one at each 40 degree angle was required. The original belts were made for nylon, the same material the tire case was made with. That helped a lot, but then they discovered they could use Polyester instead of the nylon, and it worked even better. The use of different belt material changed how much the tread surface was stiffened. Then doubling up on the number of belts helped even more, so the 4 belt "poly" belts allowed a wider tread width without excessive tread wear. The ultimate belt material was a steel reinforced belting material, that even aides in the prevention of some tire punctures. Those steel belts enables the bias ply tire to go 40,000 - 45,000 miles before the tread was wore out.
What is the difference between a bias ply and a radial tire?
In a bias ply tire, the foundational cords (the case of the tire) ran from one tire bead, across the tire at about a 40 degree angle to the bead on the other side. Then a 2nd cord would start on the other bead, and run across the tire at the other 40 degree angle, the two cords would cross each other at the center of the tread. Most street use tires had two pairs of cords crossing the tire (a 4 ply tire), many truck tires had 3 pairs (6 ply tire) or 4 pairs of cords (8 ply tire). The wrinkle wall slicks, and many other soft wall bias ply racing tires are only 1 pair (2 ply tire) construction. The more pairs of cords that were present the stiffer the sidewall, and the more weight the tire could carry. The cords went from bead to bead, a belt only ran under the tires tread width. The only thing holding the belts in place was the bonding agent, and for the most part, the tread was attached on top of the belts. Most of the performance car era tires were 4 ply bias cords covered with 4 ply polyester belts, bonded together under the coating of rubber, with the "Wide Oval" wide tread. The problem was, those belted bias ply tires were starting to get expensive.

Around 1972 or 1973, America was introduced to European radial tires. A radial tire has a different construction. Instead of the tire cords running from one tire bead to the other across the tire at a 40 degree angle, a radial tire has the cords running from one bead straight across the tire to the other bead at a 90 degree angle to the beads (to form the tire case). The cords did not cross each other at all, but the cords are still applied as a pair of 2, street tires still having a 4 ply rating. This process shifted the tires flex away from the tread surface and into the tire sidewalls. The tires no longer pinch the tire tread together as it met the ground, the tread laid flat, and the sidewalls flexed. As soon as the tread quit pinching together as it contacted the ground, the amount of tread that wore off was greatly reduced. Tread mileage instantly increased, ride comfort also increased, and car handling improved because the tread surface remained mostly flat on the road surface because the sidewalls of the tires were doing the flexing. The entire process also reduced the rolling resistance, so the vehicle's gas mileage increased! It didn't take long to figure out a pair of belt material the width of the tread almost eliminated tread pinch completely, if those belts were steel, it was even a better picture. At the time, steel belted bias ply tires and steel belted radial tire were both the hottest thing on the market.

It was not long after that, the steel belted radial tire was the tire to have. Long lasting (easily 60,000 miles!) Better gas mileage (at the time of the oil embargo), add in a smoother ride, and better handling, and the steel belted radial was a winner.

About 2 years into the steel belted tires (around 1970), a problem developed, for both the bias ply and the radial tires. When the tires heated up in the summer heat (nation wide), or because of low tire pressure or excessive tire load, the steel belts would heat up as well and the steel held the heat longer. The heat was breaking down the bond that held the steel belts in place. This was allowing the steel belts to shift within the tire itself. Pieces of the steel belt started coming through the sidewall rubber as the belts shifted towards one side of the tire or the other. It started showing up on the bias ply tires first, once the belt would shift, the place on the tire where the belt was no longer under the tread, became the flex point and rapid tread wear started instantly. Within a year of that discovery, the steel belted bias ply tire quietly disappeared from the market place, but the steel belted radial held on a bit longer.

The steel belted radial issue became a problem a year or so later, the root cause was the same, belt bonding to the tire case failure due to heat, but the issue manifested itself differently. When the belt shifted on the radial, it often took longer to notice. Because the flex in the tire was in the sidewall, quick tire tread wear was not the first visible problem, the tire tread would shift on the radial cords along with the steel belts. Often the first noticeable problem was an out of balance tire, a vibration, or a shimmy on the offending end of the car. Until enough of the bonding agent failed that allowed an entire section of the tread with to shift on the tire case, the cause of the issues was not easily apparent, but when the failure grew enough to see the deformation in the tire tread, the issue was plainly visible.

Because the failure was easily visible on the radial, the failure of the bias ply steel belted tires a couple years before was shifted towards the radial as well. The bonding agent failure because of excessive heat was blamed on the radial tires construction, but the public ***ociated the steel belted tire problem with the radial because the steel belted bias ply had disappeared from the markets.

Not many steel belted radial (or bias ply) tires exist any more, but the failure of the bonding agent, because of excessive heat, still exists today. There are many more radial tires on the road today then there are bias ply, and there are a lot fewer belted bias tires built these days. I suspect the failure rate of either belted tire construction method is probably pretty close between the two construction methods based on the number of those tire built.

If you can correctly guess how many times the tires on your ride have been over heated because of high outside temps (exactly how much heat was too much for the tires on your car?), low tire pressure, being over loaded, simply ran hard on the street over the life of your tires, I suppose you might be able to correctly determine how long they will last before the bonding agent fails. ***uming of course the tire was properly built in the first place with a good bonding agent.