Technical Got 5 year old tires?

All my cars/trucks have 5 yr old tires if they are 5 yrs old. We don't drive much. Some of my Bonnevilles are at least 25 and I'll be on them at El Mirage this year...

 

Dang. Just finished my Plymouth after a long build. Tires are 9-10 years old but full tread. Crap.

 

Many years ago Firestones were famous for shedding tread. I think they recalled them at one point. Of course I didn't hear about any of it until I shredded four of them.

 

You're not alone, it's not hard to find a build thread picturing a brand new set of wheels and tires, surrounding a bare frame. As the NTSB testing pointed out heat, sunlight, under inflation, overloading and deformation have as much to do with failure as age. Of course the older a tire is the more prone it is to these things.

We have one of those fancy new balancers at my school with the road force wheel. Man that thing really puts a load on the tire as it's spinning, you can really see the deformation. Might be a good way to test tire integrity, although it would take awhile to build up long distance type heat.

I was just looking for a post I made last year but can't find it. Put on some Firestone radials, admittedly older than the hills but no cracking. About a month later a front end bounce, one of them was about to shed the tread, or worse. I have nothing against Firestone but it sure seems like they have their share of failures.

 

Don't ever use armour all on anything!
It sucks the moisture out of rubber and vinyl. Ever see what it will do to a vinyl dash board? Or a jeep top? It will wreck it in days.
Use a proper plastic treatment.

303 protect works well. Even on lexan windows.

 

I sold a guy a rear with wheels and Mickey Thompson 33" X 18" tires that were mounted new and never run back in about 1990. I told him that even though they still had the nubs I would only use them for mocking up his Model T Hemi. I saw him at a cruise this past fall running those same tires. Thee are no cracks in them or any visible defects and they are almost 30 years old. They were never out in the sun but they were in a very hot metal warehouse for a few years.

 

Firestone 500s would bust the cords and the tire would fail. There was a joke about putting them on Pinto hatchbacks for your ex wife's car.

 

The trouble with radials is your attempting to use two vastly different elements that have a vastly different rate of expansion and flexibility. steel and rubber. only the beads which did not flex was steel in Bias Ply tires. And after a time that wrapped steel starts to slip in the rubber. and they fail.

 

I think the best solution to tires for the time you're building a hot rod from scratch is to spend a little time at the used tire shops that seem to be everywhere you look here in GA. Don't know if that's so all over US, some states may have more laws about that. Look for the sizes you plan to run and use them for the mock up stages of your build till the time comes to put it on the road, then get your tires, insisting on a recent manufacture date on the ones you buy.

 

FWIW, I was in the tire business for some years.

1. Yes, there are widely varying quality in radial tires.
2. Yes, exposure to heat, sunlight, load and inflation have as much to do with failure as does age.
3. Yes, the centrifugal forces go up exponentially, as the square of speed (Fc = mv2/r). An 85 MPH cruise generates twice as much centrifugal force as 60 MPH.

For true, but truck/RV tires are much stronger, more durable construction than the typical passenger radial.

I just got a steal deal on a set of Michelin truck tires for $100. The seller thought he was taking advantage of me and getting out of paying a tire disposal fee. Someone in his RV club convinced this guy the ten-year-old-but-like-new tires, which had been stored indoors all their ten years, would explode and kill his entire family the next time he took his 5th wheel RV on the road. He spent $1500 on new tires, mounting and balancing, plus the hassle of towing his RV to the tire shop and back.

I mounted his takeoffs on my F250, which I drive like I stole it. They may explode tomorrow, but I ran a similar set of Michelins on my Studebaker 3/4-ton for thirty years and only changed them out because the sidewalls were weather checking.

Your opinions and experiences may vary.

jack vines

 

Well Jack, I bought a 2003 2500HD Silverado turbo diesel new, OT I know, but we're talking about tires. I've always "driven it like I stole it", but it is only one of several vehicles I drive, including 2 hot rods, so it still has less than 100K miles on it.
When the first set of tires was needed I bought only 3 and used the spare as the 4th, taking the best of the 4 removed and using it as the under bed spare. A few years later, I was servicing the truck on my friend Red's lift before a run to an event pulling my roadster on a trailer.
Having changed oil and filters, lubing, etc. I was checking tires pressures and when I ducked under to check the spare, I saw that the tread had separated from the sidewall on the visible side for about half the circumference of the tire, and it had looked just fine, mounted and inflated, or off the wheel visually examining it before I mounted it on the steel spare wheel after removal from one of the 4 alloy wheels on the ground.
I see you're in WA state so maybe I won't be on the same road as you if and when one of those old tires lets go while you're "driving it like you stole it"

 

Was the spare which separated one of the OEM tires? If so, they're usually built to a price as much as to quality. Also, if it was on the ground long enough for the set to need replacing, it already had a lifetime of heat, sunlight, load and cycles on it before being repurposed to a spare. Not exactly apples to a like-new tire stored indoors, now is it?

jack vines

 

...I'll bet the majority of guys on here are running tires 5 years old or more,...lot of guys betting they won't come apart....I've never had a tire come apart except on my car trailer, but it sits out in the weather all the time...

 

After almost 2 pages of replies the verdict is still out !! However 1 thing is sure , it will cost more to replace/repair that front fender than the set of tires cost the OP. That's why I bought new tires in February much cheaper than paint or fenders. Later Bill

 

The peace of mind having safe tires at high speed on an Interstate is well worth the purchase price. It never pays to go cheap.

 

Don't run radials on Hot Rods. Problem solved.

 

Agree. Armorall when first introduced took the lamp black (fine carbon black particles that makes natural, crème / white rubber, look black) out of tires. So it was like using drugs... the more you used it to make your tires look good, the grayer the tires got, and the more you used it to make your tires look black again. I hope they changed the formula. Eagle One didn't have that problem. Tires are like all rubber products. Do you belly ache when you need new suspension bushes? Door seals? Wiper blades? Rubber fades, hardens, cracks, etc. naturally. UV speeds it along, too. Gary

 

The bias plys would wear out in about 30,000 Miles...The Radials will still look pretty good at 70,000 miles.
Do you ever see a BALD radial tire like our old bias tires?..Well, not counting the radial that threw the tread and looked like a dune buggy tire..!
I always thought that the "Alligators" (the Tire Treads) you see along the highways were recaps that were thrown off trucks....BUT NO, these are the 'Radial' treads off of NOT Necessarily old tires and quite an expense in the 18 wheelers pocketbook.
So our dilemma as collector car operators is...
Should we buy radial tires that will look great but need replacing in 5 years...OR....Should we buy bias plys and wear them out in 5 years ?....
Seems like: ...Radials=Limited Time
Bias Ply=Limited Miles
Lose Lose Situation
Whatever we do guys....We need to be checking the DATE CODE, especially, on the Radial tires we buy tomorrow, huh?
Don't be paying good money for 2-4 year old tires from your tire store !!

 

Guess I’ll replace the 25 year old tire shop bargain radials on my ‘46 pickup

 

Remember guys, the 'official recommendation' was six years (where the hell did five years come from? Chicken Little?) and that's only actually true if you live in the sunbelt. Live somewhere where it's cooler, and tires age much slower.

 

I know one thing for damn certain. I am not buying bias ply tires. I would trust my 10 year old radials first. Back in the day, you had lots of flats with bias tires. Today, flats are very rare. YMMV..but that is my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

 

My roadster had new, as far as mileage but at least 5 year old Coker bias plies on it when I bought it and I drove it till last Summer, maybe 3-4 years after I spent 5-6 years building it.
Put Diamondback radial BFG TA WWWs on it last Summer and it' drives so much better that it's like another car.
Yeah, you buy those POS bias plies from Coker so you can be "traditional" and I'll ride in comfort on good tires.

 

Ya could ask...just sayin

 

Cite a source?

Never seen Armour wreck anything "in days"

 

The radial tires on my coupe will be 6 years old this year. I'll probably buy new tires next year, not because of age, but because they are nearly wore out. Those tires have probably 40,000 miles on them right now, but since I don't have a spare, I won't run them until they are bald. Tires with little tread depth tend to get flats more easily. As tires get old, they get hard and the traction level drops as the tires get harder. I don't want tires on my hot rod that don't have the best grip they can have.
Tires are cheaper then body work. I'd replace the tires on the coupe if I didn't already have to but 2 sets of 4 tires this spring..
The cure not having concern about the age of tires is to replace them because you drove the hot rod enough to wear them out. Gene

 

Me! On a mint black 79 ford dash and two tone black and great seat. It softened the vinyl on the dash which then cracked and the seat material separated.
The boat cushions, CJ7 roof and windows, travel trailer tires, and plastic kayaks get 303. It just works.

 

Don't want to hijack this thread, but dumprat, can/will you provide maybe a brand name to go with the "303"/ I'd like to look into that stuff.

 

All I can say about Armor-All. When I was about 11 or 12, I discovered it made the vinyl seat on my Yamaha motorcycle look absolutely fantastic. I put on about 3 coats. I was pretty impressed with that stuff, till I actually drove it and applied the brakes. Don't do this.

 

Lol. Up to the mid-60s Triumphs (some of the best in motorcycling styling btw, imo) came with a parcel rack on the fuel tank. They had to remove them due to guys tearing up their nuts.

 

I'm very skeptical of needing tires in 6 years without considering use/storage/history of use/climate. I bought into this 10+ years ago or so when this type of thread hit here or somewhere else I follow, gave my 10+ old perfectly good looking low milage radials to a man whos still running them on his Hot Rod today. Side note, had all the trailer tires on my box trailer go flat from stems rotting, tires were sun cracked, 5/6 years old, they were covered except for use, very little, but outside and China junk. Sadly majority of tires are made offshore or Mexico today, not sure if from all the synthetics involved or just the quality of Shit we buy today and sadly IMO you can't believe much of what you read anywhere or see on the news today. End of Old Timer Rant, Everyone have a great day, Be Safe !