Like New Tires

[Carnut]

My friend Carl Fry just sent me this email about his tires:

Hi folks,
Take a look at the pics of the Michelin EP-X tires from my '65 Riviera. These tires were always inside, never exposed to the sun heat or cold and were meticulously maintained. I only drove the Buick to and from car shows. These tires had 90 to 95 % of the tread remaining.... but they were 20 years OLD. All three failed from April 30, 2008  to June 14, 2008. With an unbelievable stroke of luck, all three blow-outs occurred WHILE SITTING STILL IN MY GARAGE !! You may want to pass this along to anyone like me who thought if you only take care of tires they will be safe regardless of their age. This is WRONG !! I'm changing any tire from now-on that is seven years old. Of course on the other end of my tire/car story...  my silver '78 Diablo goes thru rear tires every six months!!! (no problem here..)
See Ya All at The Sunday Arc Car Show at Exploration Place July 27...
Carl












Carls 65 Riviera



Humm, wonder if all those years of me armoralling those tires
for Carl would have contributed to their early demise?

[enjenjo]

Those two tires I blew on my trip out west two years ago were 10 year old new tires, never mounted. They lasted less than 200 miles.

[Kustm52]

I had one on my trailer do the same thing a few weeks ago. Glad it happened while it was sitting. Any idea what can cause this while they are just sitting still?

Brian

[39deluxe]

The Goodyear Eagle ST's on my wifes Corvette are about 20 years old and, like yours, have very few miles on them. I cancelled taking the car on a Corvette outing this week because of the tire age. I may just stop driving it locally too after seeing those tires. Time for some new ones.

Tom

[Carnut]

Heh, heh, I am in a bit of a quandary on this whole thing.

Both my 67 Charger and 61 Chrysler have performance tires that are over 20yrs old. Aside from the fact I don't have money to replace the tires, the
type tire I have on the cars are no longer made by the mfgr, and I chose those tires because I was quite partial to the tread and sidewall design of the tires.

Heck on my 40 Ford the tires are on the rear are 78 series 30 some years old. If I had the money I guess 70 series BFG's would be put on.

Guess I'll just continue to 'test' the longevity thing on my tires.

Anyhow, my friend Carl seems to blame part of his tire problem on Michelin and won't be buying anymore Michelin brand tires.

Heh, heh, so Carl goes out and gets BFG's to replace them, then I tell Carl I thought Michelin had bought out BFG awhile back.

Geese, even my 'Brand New' PT Cruiser I bought in summer of 01 now has 7yr old tires on it.

Time sure does go by fast.

[39deluxe]

I never had a tire fail from age yet without a lot of abuse first. I still have some 7.10/15s in the basement on '47 Ford rims that I have owned since 1964. I put Chevy brakes on the front in 1965. They are still inflated but are just sitting in the rack with the Ford brakes bolted on and no weight on them.

I have heard about Michilin failures too. My parents had a set start to come apart years ago on a trip to AZ in the summer. Sure the roads were hot but the tires were only 4 years old and they had them checked out before the trip.

As for BFG a friend had some T/As on this F1 that were old but still good tread depth. He took it out on a trip last summer when he put the new small block in it and got about 40 miles before blowing out a rear. And yes, BFG has been owned by Michilin for quite some time.

I hate to take off good tires but I have seen some failures with other brands too on the Corvette sites I frequent. Blown tires and fiberglass don't get along too well.

Tom

[C9]

In three weeks, two sidewalls started peeling off and not due to curb damage then a blowout.

This last after one ten mile round trip and a 30 mile trip in cool weather.

Last one was at 60 per on a cold morning about 60 miles from home and a trailer about 1500# under gross weight.
Tire pressures were checked that morning.

Shown here:



All the same brand Chinese tires that came with a new trailer that was about 3 1/2 years old when the tires started going away.


The Chinese pos tires stand in sharp contrast to the tires on my two wheel utility trailer which were made in the USA and 16 years old when I sold it.
Tires still looked good, no cracking etc.



All kidding aside, take a look at this video.
Talks about shops selling old tires as new.

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4826897

[reborn55]

Those look like the Michelins that keep blowing on my ambulances.  Usually less than 5-6000 miles.  Never any recourse from Michelin or NHTSA.  And they are expensive.

[bucketmouth]

Oh gosh I had some info on tyres about that very subject. It was to do with tyre companies not being able to sell tyres over 6 or 7 years old for that very same reason.
You can actually read on the tyre somewhere when the tyre was made.
When I find the article I'll post it.

[Canuck]

Every tire is stamped with an alphnumeric code on the sidewall near the rim and follows the letters "DOT". The code is in an XXYY format. XX is the tire plant code and YY is a code for the tire size.

For example, I was at Wal-Mart the other day and wanted to know who makes the Douglass and Continental tires they carry. Continental was PCYY and Douglass was MDYY. Looking them up in the chart I discovered they are made by Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company Canada and Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company USA, respectively.

A tire I have in stock is coded   "VMH5-B4K344-X06A"    Firestone Canada H5 –

Tires are also marked for manufacture date also...so they can figure out warranty issues.
Yes, I believe that after the XXYY code is an optional 4 digit code specific to each manufacturer.

The third 4 digit code references the date of manufacture . The week of the year is in the first two digits and the last two are for the year. So, 2105 would be the 21st week of 2005.

The Tire Identification Code for tires produced prior to 2000 was based on the assumption that no tire would be in service for ten years. They were required to provided the same information, with the week and year the tire was built contained in the last three digits. The 2 digits used to identify the week a tire was manufactured immediately preceded a single digit used to identify the year.

For example, if the Tire Identification Code on a tire reads:

XXXXXXXX 0680  
XXXXXXXX 0600 06 - Manufactured during the 06th week of the year
XXXXXXXX 0680 8 - Manufactured during the 8th year of the decade

While the previous serial number format identified that a tire was built in the 8th year of a decade, there was no universal identifier that confirmed which decade (tires produced in the 1990s may have a small triangle following the Tire Identification Code to identify the decade). The Tire Identification Code format used since 2000 accurately confirms the year.

These codes don't necessarily apply to older tires, ie my 60's vintage Firestone.  ( a NOS tire if anyone is looking for one)

Other numbers are marketing codes used at the manufacturer's discretion.


This is a link to a data base of the manufacturing code on tires to find out who made it and where.

http://tirebusiness.com/subscriber/databook/tirecodes.html?letter=zero


More than you wanted to know.

Canuck

[bucketmouth]

Well canuck I was gonna say that  I'll stop looking for that info now.

[39deluxe]

Good information. Thanks.