Technical older vintage tires? are they good enough ?

As an ex-Firestone Tire Company employee, I can tell you that I would never run 20 year old tires on a driver. Maybe for display or just to roll the car around on. Rubber will deteriorate from within as well as from the outside elements. Plastic wrapped or not, please don't put the rest of us and yourself in harm's way by using them as driver tires.

 

Yep. And tires sitting 20 years in a shed somewhere is going to safe? That is my whole point in bring it up and calling it Russian Roulette. You just ate up all of any safety factor by using tires 10 to 14 years past good. But it is worth the risk for the HAMB thumbs up? Right? Spend the $ on new tires or park the car. Period. But horses not drinking water and getting off of lawns. I reserve the "Ha Ha I told you so". Do what you want.

 

I didn't buy a new tire until after I turned 30 or so. Whatever was on the wreck that I picked up stayed on the car. Ten, twenty years old, as long as they held air they were fine with me. Of course, I also drove cars back and forth to High School and after that back and forth to work and all of them had drum brakes. This seems to have become a real point of contention on various forums. Old tires and drum brakes, the Devil's playground evidently.

Not sure if I ought to be thankful that I'm still alive or just chalk it all up to somebody else's overly caution nature. Right now I'm looking at a set of original red line wide ovals for my Vette, I guess that I just don't care about my own safety or the safety of others since I'm planning on picking them up next payday.

 

There was no discussion about how long tires lasted or until Firestones brand new tires stated coming apart.

I guess it's past time I replaced the tires on my sedan,I'm sure the are at least 20 years old.

My next set will be bias ply. HRP

 

I often wonder if recappers consider the age of a tire before they recap them. I am sure some of the old bias play tires may have been recapped more than once. I for one never used any... Seen too many treads slung off and laying beside the road to trust them.

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Yes they do, at least for big truck tires. 5-6 years old casings are about the max age most recappers will do. A good, undamaged casing can be capped two or three times. I've had casings capped twice before, and never had a problem with them as long as they weren't over that 5-6 year time frame. Most of the time you see a recap sling off nowadays is because it was damaged somehow or ran low on air too long, breaking down the casing. Recap technology today is much better than even 10 years ago, and way better than it was in the 1960's.

As to the exploding Firestones, I bought a set of pull offs and put them on our 93 Explorer, and wore them out. I kept them at 35 psi though, not the lower 20 something that Ford had on the sticker. Wife went by the Ford dealer one day to pick up a part for me, the service manager saw the Firestones and about had a fit, pulled her into the bay and slapped on a new set of Michelins free of charge! He thought they were original to the car, and she didn't think to tell him no different, she was needing a new set anyway! Was talking with a tire dealer one day about the exploding 'Stones, and he said he conducted his own test with PSI and tire temps. At Ford's PSI setting, the tires got a lot hotter than at 35 PSI the tire was rated for. So it was more Ford's fault than Firestone's that the tires failed. Ford was trying to get a better ride out of a truck based SUV with the lower PSI.

So, getting back to the original question, if it's a trailer queen or a parade car, the NOS bias tires might be OK for slow speeds. If you're going to run highway speeds, I'd feel safer with a newer casing, but it's yours, do as you wish....

 

There is a lot of sanctimonious bullshit on this thread.
Let's see...NOS bias ply tube type tires in the original wrapper going on a bone stock car.
It sounds reasonable and I dare say is safer than 85 percent of what's out there.
About every 100 feet on the side of the highway are retread skins from big trucks. Where is all the carnage?
Forum debates like this turn. They go to that surreal land of Soapboxes, unproven calamity, and suedo law. In another word bullshit.
Even the guys who use words like negligence, stupidity ect ect...know that these tires will be fine on this car.
Will they admit it....hell no and get off the soap box? Are you kidding?

Let's see I can play this game too.

Are you a certified automotive engineer?
Have these/your designs been tested in an independent laboratory specifically for the application you use them?
Will you be able to prove in a court of law that these changes in design for safety, performance and comfort will not contribute to a catastrophic event?

The OP is running the correct tire with the correct tube running the correct speed.
There is the assumption that the OP must be an idiot, not able to catch a problem with his tires new or other wise.

The truth is we can be sued for the silent fart in the grocery isle wether it is ours or not.

 

Not sure if this pertains to car tires, but in the late '60's, my dad drug a '54 COE Ford (think it was a 1.5 ton) out of some guys field, he built a bed for it to run his D4 Cat and Dozer on it.

Okay, he did commercial tractor work hauling that D4 on the same tires (8.25x20) for many years, that was a lot of weight in the hot northern ca summer months, and never had an issue with a blowout or flat/etc. Those tires were old and hard.

Now, would I look for old NOS tires stored away somewhere for a deal?...no, but if I had to get my vehicle home, I'd put on anything that would hold air.

 

I got the tires home sat and they are soft as new, look perfect, and I think with the type of driving I will do they will work. most of my driving will be around town, to supper and cruising etc, highway driving will be scarce and the car is not gonna go over 50 to 55 mph tops. I'm gonna give er a go , thx for the opinions

 

The bias ply Coker/BFG tires on my roadster are maybe 15-16 years old. No weather checking or cracks down in the bottom of the tread grooves, but they are harder than concrete
Drag this car once in awhile, 1/8 only, but still in the excess of 90 mph. Recently bought a set of MT radial drag slicks ( not street drag radials, but racing radials). Next step is to replace the Cokers with radials, sorta leaning towards the Diamondback WWW as opposed to Coker bias look radials.

 

When I got my Shoebox it had some cheap Nankang bias ply 6.00/16 truck tires from about '91. They were cracked up pretty bad & rode terrible. I found a set of Commander wide whites on CL, date code '97, same tire as the new Coker Classics as far as I can tell. Those tires were at about 50% tread, I got the set for $80. I ran them until they were down to the tread indicators, they wore even & never caused a bit of trouble. They did handle pretty bad by the time the tread was worn down to nothing. I just upgraded to another set of CL specials, some Coker Classics from about 2009 as I recall. 99% tread, I plan on running them just like I did the last set.

No, I wouldn't do that with radials. I've had too much bad experience with them being shot long before the tread was gone.

 

both those posts make me feel even better thx

 

Sell the 16" tires to me?

 

Do steel belted radials have to say they are steel belted?

 

I'm not sure they are still making steel belted radials. All the old ones stated they were steel belted on the sidewalls. When they first came out, they were the hot ticket, the steel belts prevented a lot of thread punctures, but as they got older, the steel belts would shift, and sometimes a piece of steel would come through the sidewall and jab your hands.

Most modern radials have belts made from other material rather then steel. Gene

 

Sometimes, the HAMB can be more interesting than FaceBook. I went through 2 bags of Popcorn.

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I like taking chances that could get me, and the people around me killed.

Makes me feel so alive!