i took a tire to discount tire because the valve stem was leaking. i bought new wheels and tires for the woodie i am building, about 11-12 years ago. the farthest this car has moved is acrossed the shop (mostly on car skates). the man that works at discount looked at the manufacturers date and said i cant even put air in your tire cause it's over 10 years old, if i do i could loose my job. he gave me a new valve stem and said i'm sorry. do other tire stores have this policey?
Had a similar experience there with a slow leak issue. The reason given was a safety issue. Took the wheel and tire to Les Schwab and they worked on it no problem. Maybe someone who has worked in a tire shop will chime in.
I ran into a similar problem with a trailer tire, I bought a tire matching the one I already had on the trailer. Wal Mart tire technicians refused to put it on the trailer after it was mounted! In their defense they let me use their jack and lug wrench to do it myself. The story was it was not a trailer tire, it was illegal for them to install on the trailer. Tony
I've seen tires turn to junk due to dry rot in a lot less than 10 years...and seen a number of threads on here documenting how older tires shreaded on the highway even though they looked good on initial inspection! I wouldn't even THINK of buying tires more than a year before the car would be ready to drive!
I agree with the shop.......you should not use a tire that is 6 years or older. I have investigated tire failures (accidents) where the tread peeled off due to cracking and hardening from using old tires. You now have a set of rollers........
My friend Ryan worked at a tire shop, He mounted up an older tire went to put air in it and it blew. He is still in the hospital with over 50 stitches and a crushed cheek bone. Not saying it would happen but it has.
I could maybe understand it if the tire in question was sun cracked, but if the tire experts can't look at a tire and see it's still pliable, then they need to go do something else. I've got tires on one of my hotrods that are 15 yrs. old and still look like new. Probably 15,000 miles on them in those years, and always garaged when not driving. I wouldn't dream of taking them off.
Just lucky? These businesses aren't going to risk a multi-million dollar law suit by going how a tire looks. The research didn't say a tire would explode as soon as it hit a certain year, they said it COULD happen. That alone is worth considering, when using used or old tires. What's stupid is that it would take a federal regulation to make people use common sense.
I wish it were that simple.... Modern rubber compounds are crap for longevity, and I'm not convinced it isn't PLANNED that way. The sooner they can have you need new rubber the sooner they see your plastic! I simply don't trust tires very much anymore. Too much weird shit going on and the things are made all over the planet anyway, so who knows what rules they follow!
I took our O/T mini-van to Wal-Mart for a couple of new tires. It was an older vehicle and they no longer carried the size it came with (205/75-14) They did have 205/70-14, so I told them to mount 'em up. They wouldn't do it because that size was not listed on the tire sticker on the door jam. The door jam also listed the tire size for this vehicle with the smaller standard engine (185/75-14). Oddly enough, they would have mounted those no problem. We don't go to Wal-Mart anymore. All rules and no sense.
Respectfully, I want to disagree with your statements and speculations. Tires from the 'past' had short tread life. It was common to replace a bias ply tire after 20,000 miles. And most of them had relatively poor grip on wet surfaces. Modern tires, with radial construction and changed tire compounds, even the cheapies, will do 40,000 and better grades twice that. As for the suspicioned "planned obsolesence" conspiracy theory, businesses usually run on averages, not exceptions. The average vehicle drives about 12,000 to 15,000 miles a year. For an average 60,000 mile tire life, that is 4 to 5 years and they are done anyway. So, a useful 'safe' life of 6 years should cover it for most tires in use. In other words, the immediate benefits of current tire construction and materials benefits a very high percentage of consumers and does so well within the likely span the tire is in use. Those outside the norm, as usual, have some accommodation to make. Ray
you aint seen nuttin yet. There are many news articles talking about the president making new regulations at an astounding pace. google ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In Past 90 Days, Team Obama Has Mandated Average of 68 Regulations & Notifications Per Day, 6,125 in Just Three Months
So very true, but it seems with all the sue happy bastards out there...... well you know. My cure? Exercise good judgment when it comes to re-use of parts, ONLY use metal valve stems & I own some Good, Old Tire equipment... But that's just me..
More OSHA bs to put businesses away. The tire dealers have to follow the rules put on them or lose their license. Thats why I have my own manual tire changer. Takes about 10 minites to change out a valve stem and the 1960 bubble balancer works just fine.
No, as stated in other replies, sue happy people if that makes one feel about saying it. Tire companies have been taken to court and lost. Even when customers gave consent and accepted the warning of danger of using old tires.
The last ten years of my working career were spent as a mechanic working most of that time for various tire shops that also did mechanical work. The rule stated by the Discount tire shop employee is not just a company rule it is a rule mandated by the Dept. of Transportation, and also OHSA. Tire shops are saddled with numerous rules and regulations that is making it extremely harder to do business. As stated previously the average life of a new tire today is five years and the six year rule is based on the average life. You may find an independant shop to change the valve stem and re-mount your tire but the owner of that shop is actually putting his business in jeopardy as he is required to adhere to the same federal and local rules just like the national chain stores are. Malcolm
does this mean you have to learn to read tire codes and refuse tires that are over six months old because the tires have a shortened period to be worked on.
Hey Malcolm How about posting a copy of the Federal rules & toss in some local ones for added effect ?
The large chains have policies dictated to them by their head offices and they will not take on a job that puts them in a position to be sued. I had a Jeep pickup that I didn't use as a truck but just a dailly driver, so I ran whitewall tires on it from something like a Lincoln Towncar. Went into K Mart for new tires and they refused to put car tires on a pickup and said I had to buy SUV rated tires, which only come in blackwall. I bitched but they told me it was company policy and they could be fired for violating it. Ever since little old ladies started burning themselves on hot coffee the whole world is sue happy now. Don
Then send him an email. We don't do politics here. AMEN! Fred ................. o sorry i dont think we do religon either ......lol , politics and religon will get ya every time , but back to the topic at hand .... yep coverin thier corporate a$$e$ , thats the name of the game today , so much for "bring it back for any reason if your not happy" by the way did you (the O/P) buy them from discountinued tire in the first place ? just courious ....
Ok...but the "longevity" I was talking about wasn't tread wear in use...it was more along the lines of the tire shelf life. I don't think the OP's 12 years of tire ownership had much worry about thread life considering he didn't actually drive on them in that time! LOL As for the 'conspiracy theory" (??) I actually think 6 years IS a long time to have a tire in continuous use...and your math on the tire life in miles is reasonable as well. Consider though that many people have two sets of tires for a driver vehicle...regular tires and snow tires. They get used for 6 months and then put on the shelf for 6...but they still age continuously during that time...despite only getting thread wear for half that time. I simply don't understand why even undriven rubber now goes bad in 6 years on the shelf. It really has to come down to the chemical makeup of the rubber being used now, especially when you consider that rubber tires from the 50's still exist. (I wouldn't THINK of running any mind you...just that those old rollers will still hold air!) The common thought (and likely correct for driven tires) is that radial carcass' are harder on the rubber than bias plys were, plus modern cars get driven a lot harder than the cars we like. Makes sense. BUT..that doesn't explain the short shelf life modern tires seem to have. I can't imagine a modern tire being anything other than mush in 60 years...let alone hold air! Perhaps it just comes down to making an affordable/profitable tire thru computer development. Today they can figure just how much (but no more) needs to go in to get an acceptable life from a tire for 98% of the buyers out there...but we, being in that other 2%, often see a longer timeline than a normal tire owner and have to deal with the issues that show up beyond the tires planned lifespan. Oh well...such is life...
Schwab charges by the inch now. They wanted $120 to mount and balance two tires. New tires and wheels but not theirs. Goodyear did them for $47.
no kidding. i was reading the outrageous pricing that guys were quoting here on the HAMB. i pay 10 bucks a tire for mount and balance, a buck each for stems, and a dollar and a half each for disposal. thats $47. that includes the guy clocking the firestone shields with the valve stems and not marking the whites or chipping the paint on the rims one bit. i get the rest though. there is work i will not do for liability sake. not for fear of being sued by the owner, but by the family of the person who they kill. i've made customers who have driven in tow their cars off my property because they were not fit for use on public streets. AND i make them sign a repair order that says just that.
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