Technical Got 5 year old tires?

After reading this thread I guess I should be concerned that I ran my '68 with it's new-in-'03 tires up to about a hundred on the freeway this past Saturday just for the hell of it. There was Armor All on the tires and everything! Some how I survived.

 

If you bought the tires in '03, that's 16 years, but have you checked the date code on them for date of manufacture?
I've really never been too concerned about getting killed our seriously hurt from a tire failure, but I have seen what those steel belts can do to a car's sheet metal, and it's a helluva lot harder to get sheet metal for 30s and 40s cars than a 68 Mustang.

 

^^^^ You left out the "And you kids get off my lawn!!!" part.

 

I bought 5 new Hankook radials for my '59 Ford in late 2014, started driving it in mid 2016. I have about 10k on them and very little wear since I aligned the car and watch the air pressure. The car is garaged all night and I don't drive it in crappy weather. So I figure I have about 30-40k miles left in them. I will be rotating the spare in with the fronts since they are the same size. I'll watch them for sidewall checking, but doubt I'd replace them any time soon. I have a couple of dailys with 5 years on the tires, Yokohamas and Michelins.

 

https://www.thoughtco.com/the-science-of-tire-aging-3234377

moral of the story is drive em more
the tires have a short shelf life, might as well drive your money out of em

 

I bought a 60 Pontiac new years day. The licence plates are dated 1970. Bias ply tires -Recaps on the rear. flat on the bottom. and after I raised it up and rotated them 1/2 turn they where flat on the top. I put 30 psi of air in them and those old bias ply tires with innertubes held air. and they are still holding air over a month later. Try that with a radial Tire! And the little bias ply tires on my Tow Dollies are over ten years old.

 

My dads 79 vette still has the factory original michelins on it I know it has very low miles on it and is always in the garage but he does drive it some. Time to tell him about this thread. Might be time for new tires.

 

It always made me nervous when I see old tires. A very good friend of mine had a pristine 68 camaro and it sat for quite a while and he got it out and took his son and daughter on a short road trip. On the interstate he goes around a slow car and at 80 or so passing one of the rear tires comes apart and flips the car. Tim lost a beautiful daughter that day and a son in a coma.

I always think of this before I put my foot into any vehicle.

 

The brand name is 303...I use it too especially on wiper blades..You tube has a lot on the product.

 

Be prepared for a shock then, at least in N. California, when you pull into a tire shop
to get a flat fixed and they won't touch it because the tires are more than 6 years old.
Happened on my wife's 30K miles RAV4. Doesn't matter how you feel about it.

 

New bias ply truck tires are available. A big tire dealer near Tuckerman Ark sells them. Of course they look out of place on newer vehicles. I don't think many new tires are made in the USA nowadays? Maybe Kelly Springfield? I just bought two Gateway Buckshot Wide Mudders. bias ply nylon 6 ply rated 16 inch tires to go on the rear of my OT wrecker. Don't know where they are manufactured?

 

When I was dragging my 40 ft 5th wheel all over the country doing NSRA trade shows I put new 235/85/R16 10 ply radials on my trailer every 2 years. On the other hand I was towing my 20 ft. trailer to Louisville a few years ago with my deuce delivery in it and the 10 ply less than a year old tires with 65 lbs of air had a blowout. Some times it's not the age but the conditions that dictate tire failure.

 

I fix my own flat and mount tires ect. I have a bisman and a coats iron tire man tire machines. tire hammer and irons ect. I still run split rims good luck getting a tire shop to work on them. I think the liability issue has a impact?

 

Yeah, that's what happens when you need tire service beyond the 'recommended' time and the 'technician' supposedly 'examines' the tire for 'safety'. They look at the date code only and then pronounce them 'unsafe'. I wonder what would happen if you had a tire brand that recommends a longer time; there are some car/tire manufacturers that use eight or even ten year times.

Not even one of the tire manufacturers will state that their product will become 'unsafe' beyond their 'recommended' time. They merely say that the tire should be 'examined' by a tech for any safety issues. Looking at the date code only is a far cry from an 'examination', but is a boon for the tire retailer. It should be pointed out that the retailer won't see any difference between common radials and your expensive reproduction bias plys.

What's next? Will car dealers start telling you your car is 'expired' when the warrantee runs out and refuse to repair it?

Sad state when a bunch of supposedly Hoodlum Hot Rodders driving 50+ year old technology soil their panties when they find out their tires are 'old'....

 

I had a guy say he didnt want bias on his car because they wear out faster than radials
I asked him how many miles he puts on his car, he said about 1k a year
I politely informed him by his logic he expects his tires to last 75 years

 

Last year I stopped by the tire store to drop off some dead tires (3 bucks a pop to take them) and when tossing them on the pile I noticed 4 Dunlop GT 60 series radials, white letter muscle car type tires. NOS, blue stuff still on the letters, soft and supple, never been outside. Whoa! says I, what are those doing here? Pulled out of stock, too old, can't sell them. Can I have 'em?!! Nope, can't do that. How about here's 50 bucks and you leave the gate open tonight? Nope. What will happen to them? They get taken to Mexico and sold.

So if you see an Impala lowrider running around Mexico with Dunlop GT radials, those shoulda been mine!

 

Here's additional food for thought...

As a group, we tend to install oversize tires on our cars. Now granted that tire technology has improved over the years, enough so that if you sized your tires to the OEM load rating you can end up with tires that look like you swiped them off a skateboard. Just look at the difference in actual size between a genuine 6.70-15 tire from 'back in the day' to it's current 'equivalent' 205-75R15, you can find a difference of between 1-2" in actual installed height with the new tire being shorter. I suspect that if you duplicated just the load rating, you'd end with an even smaller size.

Something has occurred over the last 10 years or so that everyone may not have noticed; recommended tire inflation PSI has gone up. While 'back in the day' car manufacturers recommended inflation pressures in the mid-to-high 20 PSI range (28 PSI was a very common number, but 24 or 26 was also seen regularly), that's no longer true. 32 PSI seems to be a low number these days, a lot of vehicles use even higher pressures. They're also very careful about matching rim width to tire size.

Enter Hot Rodders. Many of us select tire size by the 'look' we're after, with little thought given to load rating. Put a pair of 235-70R15 tires (load rated at 1800 lbs each) on the back of a car that only weighs 3000 lbs total, and inflating those to the likely recommended mid-30s PSI as needed in their proper application, two things are probably going to happen. One, it will ride like a lumber truck, and two, you'll probably get 'crown' wear (wear the center of the tire faster). Used to be the solution was to adjust tire pressure down, and I'm sure many of us still do that, but is that the right thing to do? Softer tires flex more, are we creating our own problem?

That turned out to be the issue with the Ford Explorer/Firestone debacle; while the recommended 22 PSI looked good on paper, it didn't work so well in the real world...

 

I still do my own truck tires. Even 40 years ago, only truck shops would do them. I worked in one shop, did some truck tire road service. Every truck had a safety cage, it was easier to air the tire up under the step bumper of my service truck. I have refused to work on some wheels that were badly rusted or had wonky lock rings. Most customers understood and would come back to the shop with a better wheel the next day. Today I think it is a combination of perceived liability and not knowing how to change one. I would say that truck tire service calls are not as cheap as they once were.

 

Crazy Steve, glad you brought up Explo*ers - Those were all Firestones. I bought a new truck in 2000 and made the dealer swap the firestones off it before Id take delivery, no other silver*do on the lot had them.
I just got rid of a set of continentals on my daily, great tread, 10 years old.

 

That turned out to be the issue with the Ford Explorer/Firestone debacle; while the recommended 22 PSI looked good on paper, it didn't work so well in the real world...[/QUOTE]
That "debacle" was because Ford didn't tell all the soccer moms that the vehicle they bought was built on a truck (ranger) chassis and to expect a harsher/harder ride than their BMW's

 

The tire pressure on my OT ride is 40 psi max, I run them at 36 and get great tire wear and a good ride quality. I run the Hankook radials on my '59 Ford, 32 psi on the rear, the car bounces over every bump in the road. Down to 29, it rides perfect, definitely a difference from the bias ply world. Back then we put 28 psi in almost everything. Now we live in a nanny-state society. All of a sudden someone is looking out for us, tires that may have sat in a warehouse for 4 years may be verboten in a service of 1 or 2 years depending on what money-grubbing shop you take the car to.

 

We have 2 hambers here in OK, that have wrecked their hot rods/customs due to tires coming apart that looked new.

 

i found a pair of Casler cheater slicks in a cube van at a local salvage yard. The owner said he put them on a '52 ford in 1962, ran them down the track once, then put them in the box. i bought them, they look cool as hell, bu , i run them sparingly-had them for close to twenty years now

 

I never had much luck with bias plies and in '68 I got my first taste of belted tires when I upgraded a new car at the dealer to optional "polyglass" Goodyears. I never looked back, they were that much of a difference.

It's only lately that I've gotten into classics-n-old iron but I can relate to guys who want the look of bias plies. I would go that way myself for a car show lizard with an occasional Sunday drive. It's the same guys who want a flathead. For the same reason, they know what they want and they get what they want. But on a vehicle that will be driven on the road as part of the experience and pleasure of owning it, there's no question in my mind that I'm going with belted tires for safety, performance, longer life, and every other factor. I just don't buy into the idea that bias plies are "safer" in some situations. Not no way, not no how.

I'd like to make one contribution to the pig pile. I've noticed that high-performance tires are speed rated. Often the exact same tire may be available rated at more than one top speed. The higher the speed rating, the higher the price tag. The difference in material is slight but the difference in care and craftsmanship is what is adding to the cost. This extra build quality produces a tire that is safer and for longer whether hot, cold, stored, or driven. But not everyone wants a $300 tire. Some people want cheap, not better. So manufacturers have to make cheap, low-quality tires for who wants them. You pays yer nickles, you takes yer chances.

 

One thing you have to watch here is a higher speed rating can change the tire wear rating. They assume if the speed rating goes up, you're after a high performance tire and that can change both the rubber compound and the initial tread depth. Pay more for a tire that won't last as long. Now FWIW, that's not likely to apply to tires we'll buy as the sizes we are usually after for our old cars have passed out of the 'performance' category a long time ago.

Again, these 'tire expiration' times are just 'recommendations' as the NHTSA was unable to establish any direct link between age and tire failures. These were primarily to protect the manufacturers from multi-million-dollar jury awards like what resulted from the Ford/Firestone fiasco. It's the tire retailers and their lobbyists that have convinced everyone that this is a 'big problem' as they see a sales opportunity. As I've noted before, buried in the full report was the nugget that tire age is related to heat, and the rate of aging is exponential, i.e. the hotter the temps the tire is exposed to, the faster it ages. The test was performed in Phoenix, the city with the highest average daily temps in the US which is what generated the six year rule . Live somewhere where those average temps are lower, the affect will be slower, in some cases much slower. A 50% reduction in temps will slow heat-related aging by more than 50%.

I suspect, and it's been alluded to, that the problem may be an inherent flaw in the radial tire designs/construction methods currently being used, but if it is, nobody that may actually know is talking about that.

 

The other thing not mentioned here is what happens to aged tires. I changed the ten year old skins on my 36, they looked great, no checks, cracks or discolour, but I was having untraceable vibration issues, old guy at tire shop says tires are too old, regardless of appearance. Tells me that they get hard as they age, so....on went a new set, showed me the tread difference between the old and new tires, sure enough the old ones were hard as hell, and considerably stiffer than they should have been.

 

So did you buy identical tires, i.e same brand/model/size? If you didn't, it's not really an apples-to-apples comparison. And even if you did buy identical, that doesn't mean the materials/construction methods used hadn't changed over time.

 

I did, cause I liked the first set.