When is a tire too old to safely run??

clutchsmoke said:

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

SV reX said:

You're not gonna use them. Put them on FB Marketplace and sell them to someone who wants pretty tread and doesn't ask questions about date codes. Recoup some money. 

That's berkeleyed. Maybe one of your kids buys them. Or maybe one of your kids gets clipped by the person who buys them.

I'm assuming SVrex was thinking the buyer of a Corvette size tire would use them just to store the vehicle and not drive on them. The problem is you never really know how they'll be used.

Yep. 
 

Never know how they'll be used, and never know how you'll be misinterpreted when you say E36 M3. 
 

I guess I shouldn't drive the Cobra replica any more until I replace the tires! I bought the wheels/tires that are currently on it from a nice gentleman in DE. He bought them when he originally built his car back in 2000. The date codes on the front tires is "2101" and the rears are "2900". Not too bad, only 23 & 24 years old. Since the car has only been driven about 100 miles since we bought it, maybe it's time to consider retiring the old rubber in favor of something a bit newer. Hopefully I can get 20+ years out of the new tires.    
 

Just kidding......

I may have a winner.  In 1963, my aunt bought an Imperial Le Baron.  Fast-forward to 2009 when care of the car was passed down to me, the original tires were still on it.  This is what 46 year old bias ply tires look like.

SV reX said:

In reply to Driven5 :

I see no reason to defend a driver who made such terrible decisions and put many lives at risk. 
 

45 mph speed limit signs are never put in places that 90 makes makes sense. It was a neighborhood, not an Interstate. 

All true. 
Also totally unrelated to the op and tire safety

except for the part that tires DID factor into the deaths. 
Not defending the bad decisions that contributed, but IS an example of "old tires that LOOK good CAN be dangerous "

In reply to Coniglio Rampante :

Ida run the op's tires on an 'ol' beater , or the ones I replaced on our Sunday car. 
Not even a nut like me, would use those for anything!

In reply to 03Panther :

Agreed.  Tires were the first thing I did on that car.

 
After my aunt died in 1974, the car basically sat in a shed on our farm for the next 35 years.  My dad basically started it and drove it around the farm buildings and maybe on the empty country road once or twice a year...maybe putting 5 miles on it per year just to keep the drivetrain from seizing.  It worked, but I had an almost "everything else" restoration/greatly deferred maintenance project on my hands.  
People at car shows marveled that it only had 21,000 miles on it thinking that was a good thing.  Nope.  I'd tell them every single hose, belt, fluid, and too many other items to list, had to be replaced.  

Ask the guy who crashed his C4-based Falcon at a 50-degree Road Atlanta in March.  Or don't.  Spit on them thangs, then get rid of them immediately.

In reply to Coniglio Rampante :

Yep. 

This is very common with Corvettes, my parents bought their '94 in 2003.  They replaced the rear tires shortly after buying it, so those were about 20 years old.  The fronts had never been replaced in their almost 21 years of ownership (and no idea how many years before they bought the car).  The car drove fine in normal, reserved driving, but the tires always were in the back of my head.  They were in perfect condition, the car was garaged it's entire life, there was zero dry rot or cracking, but they were ancient.  If it was my car, that would be the first change I would have made.  That said, tire options in Corvette sizes are very limited.

Before I even posted the question I had already ordered new tires from Tire Rack that will be installed in my driveway on Friday.  As much business as I've done with them, I'm confident that they will properly dispose of / destroy the current tires when they take them.

These things are as hard as boulders and out of balance:  I can't wait to go 50 mph smoothly...

Just finished a track day on eight year old 340 TW tires, stored on the car in the sub zero garage, very interesting.  Not much grip, they chunked, overheated and turned to grease after four laps, and I set a PR on them.   I'm gunna be stupid fast on some less old 200TW tires. HaHahahahahaha

Can't say I recommend it but also wouldn't fear it either. 

akylekoz said:

Just finished a track day on eight year old 340 TW tires, stored on the car in the sub zero garage, very interesting.  Not much grip, they chunked, overheated and turned to grease after four laps, and I set a PR on them.   I'm gunna be stupid fast on some less old 200TW tires. HaHahahahahaha

Can't say I recommend it but also wouldn't fear it either. 

I ran some 4 year old Hoosiers on the Datsun once (track day) as my new tires were near the cords.

Beyond the lack of grip the balance was crap; you'd get a slight push on entry followed by 3rd gear power oversteer..............in a car making 99hp to the wheels.

I put a set of 10 year old indoor stored Contis on the front of my Jag XKR. The next day it was damp, and the front pushed out on some mellow sweepers that wouldn't have given me pause and I tossed that car off the road. Maybe if I had scrubbed them for a little longer they would have woken up, but I learned a lesson that day for sure.

This old. 24 y 4 mo.

Yes, I was still driving on it. Not far, not fast.

Yes, it has new tires now.

My 1979 Raceinc BMX bike has the original Snake Belly tires. Last time I rode it, I banked the bike all of 7 degrees and the front end tucked; that was the first time I actually tried to turn it even slightly fast.

I've got a Model A in my garage with tires date coded from 1974. I drive it occasionally, but Model As don't go much faster than a bicycle!

Its a 3 digit date code. 234. That's the 23rd week of 1974.  Prior to 2000, folks didn't imagine tires would last a decade, so 3 digits were sufficient.

The DOT didn't require date codes until 1971, and the manufacturer of the tires (Garfield Tire) went out of business in 1980, so the 4 must be from 1974.

Ive got a couple of tires on that car that don't have any date code (pre 1971).

Don't worry... the most use it will get might be a parade or 2! 😂

I had one fail from age on Saturday, didn't check how old it was but probably at least 10 years and I wouldn't be surprised if it was 15. Stopped for gas, noticed a hissing noise, found that it was coming from the sidewall of a tire where the outer layer of rubber had cracked. Tried to fix it with some fix-a-flat hoping to get to where I was going about 1hr away and buy replacement tires at a shop there. It sprayed a 5ft stream of sealant out of the crack in the sidewall but eventually it did seal up. Unfortunately it only lasted about another 30-45mins of highway cruising, there was no hint of any further failure until I heard a rapidly increasing tire noise like someone was approaching me in a Wrangler on 40" tires, but I realized it was coming from my own beater van, at that point I knew the tire was on its deathbed and pulled off, that's when I could not only hear but also feel that something had gone terribly wrong with the tire. By the time I came to a stop it had debeaded. No loss of control and it seems like it only really went flat after the noise started but it's a good thing I didn't need to turn or brake sharply at that time.

I tried autocrossing on 8 or 9 year old BFG Sport Comp 2's. Grip was awful and I spun several times. Very embarrassing....

This thing has dunlop bias plys that are over 20 years old. I didn't think to check before the QC test drive. I almost lost it on the first turn. Down shifts would cause the rear to lose grip and kick out randomly.

One of the sketchiest drives I have had in a long time. I refuse to drive it again until new tires are installed. 

And speed isn't really the factor when figuring safety into it. Aged out tires can send you sliding sideways into a curb at less than 10mph. 

No date code but I'm pretty sure this tire was bought in 1986 after some ass wedged a drywall knife blade behind my tire at a McDonalds near San Diego so that when I backed up, my tire got a 2" slice in the tread. Worst thing was while trying to remove the lug nuts, the tire shop wrenched them on so tight that I twisted a 4 way cross tee lug wrench in half and had to buy a chisel from some guy in the parking lot and chisel a lug nut off of the car.

In 2007 or so I made this video which calculated to 120 mph. It was the last time I really drove the car other than on gravel roads to heat up the fluids.

Normally I would be embarassed to admit this, but hey this is GRM....

I'm running a set of dunlop starspecs on my miata that are from 2010. Even worse the car is parked outdoors in Canada all winter. Those tires are frozen rock solid down to -40C.  Each spring I go for the first drive and they vibrate like hell because they're flatspotted. I drop the PSI down to 20 or so and let the carcass warm up and work itself out. It always works and they are smooth again after half a tank of gas.

Annoyingly they still grip very well on the street. Would I ever drive them on track, hell no. But it is crazy how much grip they still have. This is the last year I'm running them, I only get a few hundred miles in each year and despite my best efforts to turn them into smoke, it's taken way too long to kill them.

When I was way younger and dumber, I took an old race takeoff that was clearly showing signs of drying out and was 7 years old. I mounted it on a CBR 600RR and rode around BC on it. Scary when cold or in the wet, but when the pavement got hot it still stuck like glue.

Mom drove this to Arizona and back from Michigan on 20 year old tires.  Original to the van with 65k miles on them, still plenty of tread but I made her get new ones right away once I realized how old they were.

A guy on the local MINI FB page was selling wheels and snow tires for $450. A second person was showing some interest. I didn't want to be "that guy" and torpedo his sale, but I could see a 2012 build date in one photo. I suggested he sell the wheels for $100-150 as the tires were12 years old . He corrected me and said they were 14 , but had great tread. I almost messaged the 2nd person to tell him he could buy a $100 set of wheels and new tires for very little more. Toyo has some good deals on winter tires right now. My son just got a set for his Fiat for under $70 each, then Toyo has a $100/set rebate, and Belle Tire gave him a $75 gift card for being a return customer. Almost makes me wish I needed some new ones,too.