I got an email a few months ago witha link to an ABC News video about the shelf life of tires. After 6 years the rubber in tires (be it new on a shelf or used on your rim) can become potentially dangerous. The rubber becomes brittle and can peel of the rim while driving. There is an encrypted code on the tire that lets you know what year a the tire was manufactured. places like sears and walmart are guilty of knowingly selling tires that are 10, 12, even 14 years old. I have actually been to walmart to check the validity of this story and have found older tires that are being sold as new. Click the link to watch the story it is aout 9 mins, but it is worth the watch. it will also show you how to read the tire coding. After watching this i did a little research and read that tire manufacturers are required to replace older tires if a tire store requests it. the tires can be melted down and remanufactured.


ABC News

I wonder how old the tires on my dads old truck are. He's put 1 set of tires on it in the 17 years he's had it. They've still got some tread on them.

its DATE ON OUR TIRES WE USE IT FOR RECAPING PURPOSES TO SEE HOW OLD THE CORE IS IT TELLS THE WEEK AND YEAR

this has been discussed, and i'm sure thats the same video i've seen. i've worked in this industry for quite a while. i will agree some of these tires being sold that are 4 years old is a little screwed up. BUT that family on that video where the kids died had way too many variables. if i remember right the tires were on that older van for 5 yrs when that happened, and what condition was that van in? was it aligned regularly, was the front end inspected and repaired regularly. how often did they monitor the tire pressure? how many miles did they get in those 5 yrs? kids will drive all over the place

bottom line is they shouldn't be blaming the guys that sold them those tires. if you come to my shop regularly, you will know what condition your car is in, and if you follow our recomendations things like that won't happen, cuz you will be advised on the condition of your vehicle and your tires would never stay on your car in that shape.

unfortanely everyone goes to jiffy lube a few times a year and thats it.

there's too many variables to determine tire life. some tires are toast in a few years, some i've seen are like new 7 yrs later. my mom's s10 has 67k and 6 yrs on her tires and they are about half worn, and no dry rotting, the tires on my xj are around 4 yrs old with tons of tread and no cracking. others will dry rot in a short time. way too many variables.

i agree with you. my beef is not actually with the company selling/installing the tires it is with the manufacturer. the manufacturer knows that the tire age could be a problem. If you have a tire on your vehicle for a long time than that is your responsibility to take care of the issue, but if you go into a store to buy a new set of tires than i think the responsibility should revert back to the manufacturer b/c they are aware that this is potential problem and aren't letting people know about it. Chances are that even if you have old tires they will be fine, but i think people should be aware of this issue.

ya, everyone should know what they're buying, and you shouldn't be buying new tires that are 3 or more years old, i can see a year or two tops. small businesses are stuck with franchise crap and have to spend certain amounts on inventory and then its not monitored, and on and on. when i sell tires we get them right from our warehouse, they don't sit on our shelf, and they don't sit in this warehouse either, i've never gotten a set a year old yet.

basically if they make a law, the ones screwed are the small tire shops that have to stock tires, that when a tire reaches a certain age, they have to throw it away. is the manufacturer gonna eat the cost, i think not, the small business will, they already bought the tires.

I think it has a lot to do with the vehicle and tire size, I see alot of these minivans and man the tires look so small for the size and boxiness. I would also tend to be much more cautious about age if I was doing a lot of high speed driving, not normally a problem with a jeep. I sold my 81 Yamaha with 85 year tires in 2000, they were dunlop qualifer K181's, the guy I sold it to does maybe 2,000 mi a year on it, those tires still look like new. On the other hand I had a set of Pirelli scorpion AT's on my XJ, after 2 years they were cracking and dry rotting, I don't know if that was from poor tires or the fact I used to clean them on a regular basis to keep the outlined letters and scorpion bright, I don't use cleaner or armour all on any of my tires anymore.

i agree with you. my family owns a small business and it is never "big business" that gets screwed, its the little guy. i dont necessarily think there should be a law i think that people should be informed of possible dangers so that they can be careful. a major part of the problem with the tires is that the a lot of the rubber is coming out of china, and their quality control standards are horrible.