How old are your tires?

[guido4475]

Recently the local news channel did a story on tires, and the age of them, even though they are being sold as new.There are a set of numbers on tires,along the bead of the tire,(where the tire meets the rim)that starts with the letters "DOT".The last 4 numbers in that group of numbers,That may be inside a oblong circle,give the following information. The first 2 numbers in that group are the week # they were made. The last 2 numbers in that group are the year they were made.Example, 5209, would mean they were made the 52nd week of 2009. It just may surprise you how old your tires actually are, new or not.It has been found that some tire stores are selling tires that are as old as 8 years old, even though they are new.

Some numbers may be on the outer tire, facing the inside, under the truck. I looked at a set of foreign made tires that did not have any numbers on them.Thought this would help.

 

[Moot]

Guido, thanks for the decoding lesson. I bought 4 new tires last October; 2 were marked 2609 and 2 were 3209. The 3209's must have been fresh out of the oven.

 

[guido4475]

Youre welcome, pretty interseting, I thought. I am curious to see how old some of the casings are on the recaps out there.

 

[geo]

i've seen a couple of truck's that had dry rot on tires and driver and owner didn't see anything wrong and had a bent rim to

 

[OntarioVanMan]

Also the last numbers are which curing machine # and which side they were cured in...Firestone example would have been like B32a...made on the B line in machine 32 "A"side...each machine has 2 molds. Also if it has a small Maple leaf beside the # it was made in Canada...

The perfect tires goes to the automakers. Perfect balance, no grinding.

The ones we buy in the store are NOT perfect...they were ground to balance spec in the factory.

7 years in cure dept. @ Firestone and 2 in final inspection...

 

[ebsprintin]

One thing to a van's advantage is that we will more than likely wear out the tire before dry rot becomes an issue, so we can continue to shop the discount tire shelves like we do the expired food shelf at the grocery store.

eb

 

[Turtle]

Old tires should be replaced after 10 years for sure, but European vehicle manufacturers and most experts recommend 6 years for replacement. This includes the spare. I won't buy a new tire with a manufacturing date of more than 12 months old.

 

[guido4475]

Mine were 2 months old when I bought them.Got lucky, I guess.Love those Firestones!! Excellent wear at 47,000 miles on them so far.

 

[nightcreacher]

My truck tires dont seem to last long enough to rot,but what about this?
My car is 10 years old,original Good Years,and no dry rot,plenty of tire left,of course it doesn't see any snow or rain.Has less than 12000 miles,many put on a quarter mile at a time,

 

[guido4475]

The news story also stated alot of tires rot from the inside out.

 

[Turtle]

Moisture on the outside of the tire comes and goes and doesn't promote rot (unless the tire is sitting there in a perpetual pluvious puddle). Moisture on the inside of the tire stays there, and that's where the rot happens with accelerated oxidation. There have been many cases of antique cars with tires more than 10 years old which have had blowouts, and the incidence of otherwise unexplained blowouts of tires increases dramatically after 6 years.

Several years ago (1978) there was a railroad car that was "discovered" in the Chicago rail yards, apparently having been moved around in a shell game for years. It contained several brand new 1968 Chevy Camaros, except they had been loaded into the rail car 10 years previous. The insurance company had long ago paid out, and thus owned the cars which they got rid of for a tidy profit at auction. But the very first thing they did before any of them were allowed to be driven was to replace all of the 10 year-old tires.