Technical 64 Impala riding on 27 year old tires.... Too old?

I'm sure the rest of us hope thet he enjoys it as much as you do...............

Now, back to tires.....

 

tires on my 61 Dodge are 23 years old at least, I just put around town in it, haven't been on the freeway in years. I am not going to change those. I probably drove it 200 miles last year. bought a little old lady Blazer with 14 year old tires with less than 10,000 miles on them, I changed those because I drive it all over the place. it was a garage queen and the tires were perfect.

learned all about old tires when I blew a rear tire in my motor home going to Paso Robles. I was about 10 mmiles away, a 3 hour drive for me. big chunk ripped loose but did not come off the tire, it beat the crap out of the plastic inner fenders, BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM! thought I grenaded the motor, took out the exhaust and all the wiring behind the rear axle. it happened in an instant, had it been a front tire I would have been in deep doodoo

 

I would not trust them on the highway as they will probably start coming apart if you are at highways speed for any period of time, Say 50 miles down the road at 70 to go to a Saturday rod trot.
On the other hand you could probably run around town never getting on the fast roads running a few miles to do what ever and back a few times a week and not have trouble as long as they never travel far enough or fast enough to get hot.

I've got a tire on my 71 GMC that honestly has 2.9 miles on it. I towed the truck to town to use the spray wand car wash to wash off the engine compartment and engine before I pulled the enigne (with front end sheet metal off) and blew a rear tire. Went to the tire store and got it replaced and towed the truck home where it has sat ever since and I am thinking that was six years and a lot of battles with it ago.
My mom had an older spare in the back of her Ford pickup blow sitting in the bed of the truck because the sun heated up what was probably the original 1978 spare and it blew. And like Moriarity I have a se of radial trailer tires (on my boat trailer) that are aged out even though they look good.

 

A tire in the Pacific Northwest will last, timewise, a lot longer than one in Arizona.

The family fleet here is all shod with second hand, who knows how old, tires. I have had a couple tire failures on the highway, the tires didn't explode but resulted in the car merely pulling hard that direction. Of course if the tire failed in a hard corner or at 80mph it would be a lot more dangerous than our modest speeds of 55-60 mph. So consider how you drive.

I have also noticed that tires tend to show lumps or bulges before failing, so regular inspection including pressure checking will often warn of impending doom.

 

That is an outstanding point to which I have no good response, haha!!! Too long without a doubt. I drove this car in high school in the 90's and these tires have been there the whole way through, crazy how much time goes by... Like I mentioned, she's been neglected and not out of the garage much in the last several years, no excuses there. It's gotten to where we realize we have a number of things to catch up on so we're going through some of that now. I have the trans out (powerglide) and swapping to a TH350 which is getting built as we speak. Along with that, we're doing a mess of other maintenance to get things up to par. I'll be swapping the tires and I'm contemplating replacing wheels as well but haven't decided on that yet. I'm a big fan of a lot of the 5-spoke related wheel styles so I might go back to something like Cragars like I used to have on there. I'll get some similar looking tires and keep it rolling on 15's.

The picture is of my punk-ass in high school in the late 90's when she was on Cragar wheels and before the 2" drop spindle conversion up front. Snapped this real quick out of an album it's in, sorry for the poor quality....

Only reason we went away from these is the "unilug" slotted holes that balanced like shit when mounted. I'd go with something with a true bolt pattern on the next set.

Painted this car in dad's garage at 15 years old. Haven't updated the paint since! Looking into that and discussing if we want to get that far back into it right now with all the other projects and life happening. I'd love nothing more than to guide coat and block it out and really do it right, plus re-do the trim with the black insert vs. the white. Plus it's been rear-ended since then (by a buddy....thanks dick lol) and the quarter panel was never rolled under the proper way at the repair shop. Should have had that addressed years ago, but all factors that have held us back that we're talking about revisiting.

This post has drawn a lot of fuel and fire and good information, and I figured it would. To y'alls credit, thanks for the knowledge and offering shares and input all about tires of different types and in different scenarios. All good stuff to know and learn from.

 

A fellow club member was on his way to Pigeon Forge last year and the drivers side radial tire came apart, he managed to stop the car without doing any damage.

He installed his spare and proceeded toward Pigeon Forge, he was on I 40 when his left rear tire came apart at speed and trashed his quarter panel before he was able to get the car stopped.

He got a spare from another guy that was traveling with him and they stopped in a small town and he purchased 4 new tires, the manager of the tire store told him the tires were 16 years old. HRP

 

@HOTRODPRIMER can you imagine the frustration.....That trashed quarter was the hard lesson dealt on that one. Lucky it wasn't worse.

 

He wasn't a happy camper! HRP

 

Gray spoke Torque Thrust Originals would look good on it, too.

 

That's interesting, we fought those every time we'd take them off we would go to a place near us that could balance them on the car and get them trued up. I'm sure we could have done something better to get them hub-centric but they were always bouncy on the highway. When we switched to the chrome reverse, smooth as glass.

 

Good thing it didn’t take out the waste dump…..real doo doo

 

Heck yes they would!

 

When I bought my 427 Galaxie, it had been sitting for many years. Tires looked great, but I figured they would last while I cleaned up the critter. After trailering it home, I drove it down town, which included a short stint on the freeway. At 60 MPH one let go... Scared the crap outa me. Luckily I had a spare, also old. I went to a city street, where the second one blew. AAA time, and a trip to the tire shop..... They looked fine !!

 

This is just another reason to get the car/truck out of the garage and wear the tires out!

 

I guess you got lucky on that one! Tire blow out can't be fun, especially two! Thanks for sharing...

 

Boy I'll say. I'll second that.

 

I had a decades old tire as a spare on an O/T minivan I had to drive in law school after my daily was totaled. One day I got a flat on the left rear, put the spare on, and it was supposed to last me just long enough to get a new tire. But my broke ass left it on there for like 10,000 miles. One night was driving back from my folks' place in NJ to Delaware with my wife (then GF) and the tread separated at like 75 mph. It blew the quarter out and ripped off the whole back bumper that was left hanging by only a few clips on the opposite side. The car immediately shifted to the left, and thankfully because it was so late, there was nobody on the road at the time around me. I was able to straighten it out enough to dip off into a rest area that just happened to be there. I didn't care about that van, but I'd be devastated if something like that happened to a car I cared about.

 

Might not have felt lucky at the time, but lucky it wasn't worse. That's a good scare. I'm convinced that I will be putting tires on the Impala before the cruising season begins. Thanks for the share!

 

Time fly's when we are not having fun. I own 10 cars, most for over 20 years, a few over 30. most are sitting on new tires that in most cases are at least 15 to 20 years old. Life gets in the way, and you just don't drive them enough. the 64 Marauder I keep the tires up to date, but it still sucks to toss what look like new tires every five years. The others are either sitting on jack stands or driven sparingly near home on the back roads just keeping things lubed up. love my cars but just can't justify paying 800 to 1000 dollars for tires to only put 3 or 4 hundred miles a year on them.

 

I'd replace.

Storing indoors has probably reduced cracking etc.

Sad part, they're probably better tire quality than what you'll be swapping on.

I just put the third set of tires on daily driver 16 year old truck, the 2 prior sets were replaced due to age / sidewall cracking rather than tread worn out.

 

Yea I hear ya that is a tough thing for sure, especially with that many cars! I grew up knowing Harold LeMay, up here in Washington. He at one point had the largest independent car collection in the country. Something like 3800 restored cars or some crazy thing. And thousands more waiting their turn. I would say I can't fathom that but I've seen it first hand, and it's impressive. My grandfather grew up with him and they worked together for many years. I can remember going to this house as a kid to visit and walking through the sea of cars in all the buildings, asking with signs, had pumps, steam engines, fun playground with merry go round..... How's a guy like that supposed to justify his tire bill lol. But they're largely museum cars and don't get driven. He's long since passed away and his wife and family run the business, and still host a car show every year at their home and properties, with a British double decker bus linking the two for attendees. He started out running a garbage company and just had good business sense to make it as far as he did. He and grand dad would travel the country, grand dad hauled all kinds of those cars home and worked on a lot of his stuff before eventually being the route planner for the garbage trucks. Super cool guys both of them and stories that there wasn't the time in a lifetime to tell them all. I also remember all of the super fun, cool, rare etc etc cars that he had but when he and his wife Nancy would come to visit they'd show up in a 90's Buick Century. Lol go figure. I never understood that. Now we have the LeMay auto museum that was built in partnership with the city of Tacoma next to the Tacoma dome here in Washington to honor and display his collection, revolving cars through there several at a time for the community to enjoy. I recommend checking it out if you are in the area or plan on visiting. Give me a heads up and I'll meet up with you for a beer (on me)!

 

How’d you feel regarding your gf/wife..?

 

The piece of shit minivan was actually responsible for her and I dating.

I had a beautiful black 98 Mustang GT that had some basic mods that was my daily driver. The December of my 2L year in law school, I pulled out of school after taking my last exam of the semester onto Rt 202 in Delaware, a 50 mph zone. Some dummy thought his green light was a green arrow, and attempted to turn across 3 lanes of traffic. When he realized traffic wasn't stopping, he stopped sideways across my lane, and I broadsided him at probably 40 mph. I was fine, but my car was destroyed. Being a full time student, you're really not supposed to work full time hours, so I was out a car, and of a decent enough job to buy a new one. So I pressed my family's spare vehicle into full time duty, a 1993 Dodge Grand Caravan that my mom had bought new. Mind you, this is 2009. The paint was peeling off of it, it had high miles, some rot, the AC didn't work, and the back door was smashed in from when somebody rear-ended it years before.... it was unsightly. So January of 2010 I found myself at a party at an on campus apartment, and I didn't know it at the time, but she was apparently interested in me. I only knew her as an acquaintance, we had been chatting at the party a bit because she was trying to be wingman for her friend that was trying to talk to a buddy of mine. We all went to leave around the same time, and it was cold and had been snowing. The damn van wouldn't start. Being opportunistic, she was like, "oh hey, I'll give you a ride back to your house...". I honestly didn't have much choice at that point, it was like 1 am hahaha. We've been together ever since.

She actually comes from a car family, not so much into HAMB-related stuff, but definitely into modifying cars and having specialty vehicles. When we first started dating she had a Harley as a well as an OT sports car with a manual trans. But she's always been down with the old cars and whatever comes with them, I never need to twist her arm to take the old cars out and go somewhere as a family instead of the late models. I also recently sold her dad my 55 Ford I was working on.

 

The big LeMay museum was awesome when we visited while in town for the Goodguys show in 2015. I love car museums and that was one of my favorites so far. I wanted to go to the LeMay at Marymount museum as well but sadly didn't have time. The drag strip where the Goodguys drags were held was really neat too! It's such a cool area you live in!

 

Right on! Glad you got to enjoy that. Marymount is definitely a cool palce, you'll have to make it to the big annual event one day if it fits in for ya. It's a neat sight. Pacific International Speedway (PIR), Formally and affectionately previously known to locals as SIR (Seattle International Speedway) is a very cool place to hang out and where you would have seen the Googguys Nostalgia Drags, and then the show is at the Puyallup (Washington State now) Fairgrounds. Haha I go to both every year! I've seen a ton of cool events at PIR including the Pacific Northwest Nationals for NHRA drags. I was there trackside in the Budweiser tent when Kenny Bernstein shattered the ceiling at over 300 MPH!!! (dad was in with the Budweiser sales guy and got tickets) I watched John Force cars blow up of course, Kristin Powell's first season in Royal Purple top fuel car at 16 years old, all kinds of fun stuff. Super Chevy Sunday and others were a favorite when I was a kid. More in my immediate area we have Bremerton Raceway and Motorsports park where we can run up to have some Friday night and weekend fun running the track, ride dirt bikes, and watch road course racing. I hope to take my 57 Chevy gasser build there to run the strip once in a while when it's done!

 

I found this older but still relevant article from Hagerty. Maybe it will help someone discern the information in this thread.

https://www.hagerty.com/media/maintenance-and-tech/tread-carefully-with-older-tires/

I'm now realizing the tires on all my collector vehicles are 10 or more years old. The frustrating part is that some of the tire sizes I want to replace with the same aren't readily available anymore.

 

That's a good and quick easy read. Thanks for posting. I'm not sure the manufacturers offered too much there, but I particularly like this little nugget worth sharing for those not in the know on determining age of the tire:

How to determine the age of your tires

There’s a relatively easy way to determine the age of your tires, if you know where to look and how to read the jumble of letters and numbers on the side of your tire. You only need to worry about the last three or four digits.

The code begins with the letters “DOT,” which indicates that the tire meets all federal standards. The next two numbers or letters are the plant code where it was manufactured, and the last four numbers represent the week and year the tire was built. For tires manufactured in the 1990s, you’ll find a three-digit code. For example, the numbers 317 means it was manufactured during the 31st week of 1997. After 2000, the number is a four-digit code. For example, 0301 means it was manufactured during the third week in 2001.

 

@05snopro440 Yea that's rough when you have to give up on a tire due to age and can't get it properly replaced. Hopefully you find a source or a good alternative!

 

Rule of thumb is 10 years. We once had an emergency call at our fire house after starting the engine and just pulling out one of our front tires blew out. Thank god we were not on the highway. The tires looked excellent and were not that old but when we had the others checked out we had dry rot on the inside.