Tire Age Poll: Data Needed. Please respond!

[scumdog]

I was at Mucle Car Madness at Rangiora last weekend (Google it and have a look, hundreds of American & Australian classic cars) and there was a guy there that could white-walls any tyres for $100 per 4 tyres.

I saw his examples and they looked good, of course i don't know how good they would look after 10,000 miles or so.

Also a guy selling spray-on-wash-off whitewall cleaner, was tempted to buy a bottle of his product but would like to have seen the stuff in action.

[Howard Prout]

Primarily as a result of this discussion, I have been looking for new tires for Old Betsy - the tires on her are about 22 years old! I finally decided to go with Firestone FR380s - the premium for wide whitewalls was more than I could justify. I went to a local Firestone store today to see when they could get some for me - the answer, we have the size you want in stock! So I asked how old they were and was told that since they were still in production they were not very old. I then explained my intended use and that I wanted tires less than 6 months old. So he went to the storage area and brought back a tire to show me the date code. It was 2908 - nearly two years old. I said that was not acceptable. He is now trying to find me a set of tires that are less than six months old.

[ncbird]

informed consumer

Just love an informed consumer.. good for you Howard. I would suspect they were some what taken back by your knowledge of the DOT information. Grant

[JohnG]

We need more people checking!!! You don't have to be buying new tires to contribute. If you can get the date off your tires and you remember when you bought them, this is valuable too.

That said, the more old tires we discover being sold (assuming this happens often) the more motivation people have to do what Howard did and protect their interests.

[karambos]

I was worried about the manufacturing date on my tires when I was buying them so I had them checked by the people I was buying from. They were made in June 2009 and I bought them in early 2010. They are 2.5" whitewalls from AMERICAN CLASSICS.

[Howard Prout]

After several go arounds with Firestone stores it became obvious that they either could not or would not guarantee that they could get tires fresher than two years old. There was also an implicaton that if they brought them in, they were mine regardless of when they were made. No Thanks. I had some time to kill this morning so went to the independent tire store I have dealt with for years. I told the fellow I wanted Firestone FR380 P215/70R14 no more than six months old. I also explained why I wanted fresh tires. He agreed and said he would see what he could do. This afternoon he called to say that he could get what I wanted dated 0310! I said, SOLD.

[Howard Prout]

I picked up the tires yesterday - they are dated 0310, so you can get fresh tires if you work at it.

[protourbird]

Here is a link to a 2008 ABC News report on tire age http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=4826897 .
I remember in 2000 I had just bought a pristine 68 Chevelle SS396 and a week later I was on the highway when at about 60MPH the tread separated and ate up the Sikkens paint on the front fender. I was just sick. The tires had great tread. On the way to the tire store another one separated but didn't come apart. Out of the five tires that came with the car three had separated tread.

[ncbird]

way to go Howard

A good tire store will have no problem with your request. If they do find a different dealer. Another informed consumer gets what he deserves.

[JohnG]

This is a "no lose". Whether you fear old(er) tires or not; what your cutoff is for "old", you cannot argue that newer is better.

In our case, with cars that get relatively little use (in mileage terms), this is much more acute than the average daily driver. I know, for example, now that I will never come close to using up the tread on my TBird. Six months ago this would not have crossed my mind.

Best, Howard has proven that with some determination you can get substantially fresher tires than at random.

(Side story: last summer I needed a pair of 14" tires for my daily car. Stopped by a tire dealer and he was all out. I had to leave the next day. My neighbor suggested a local salvage yard that had carefully organized racks of used tires. What the ****? So I found 2 nice looking Goodyears of the correct size, paid $20 each for them and put them on. A month ago, during all the discussion here, I got down and looked at the manufacture date. July of 2008. So by some luck I got one year old tires in a salvage yard!)

John

[YellowRose]

Tire Age Poll: Data Needed. Please respond!

When I had my tires turned to the black side out, Discount Tire told me that my tires were dated in 2006. So about a year before I bought her, the previous owner had put new tires on her.

[Guest]

Hey Guys,
I know this has nothing to do with Thunderbirds, but tires.
My wife and I had new tires put on our motor-home in June 2006. We bought them from Big-O-Tires. We were headed to a NASCAR race this past June and had a blowout 1400 miles on six tires! The tread totally can off, the steel cords showing, the tire was still up! And done some serious damage to my camper.
The guy that changed the tire for me asked me when did I have the tires put on? I told him 2006. He said let me show you something. The date on the tires were 27/03! (they were made the 27th week of 2003) These tires were three years old when they sold them to me. I paid for new tires. The guy told me the other ones would probably do the same thing!
I called Big-O-Tires where I purchased the tires. He told me that ownership had changed and that he would only warranty the damaged tire!
I called the company. The guy took my information and I have not heard anything from them!
I called the Better Business Bureau, they informed me there was no law against sell old dated tires for new!
So now I have to break down and pay $800.00 for six new tires
Richard D. Hord

[Astrowing]

There's a considerable number of people in our area that will buy a new car and decide they want to buy the new big rim tires and they'll take the original equipment tires off and give them away. So there is a good number of perfectly good OE tires and wheels around if you look.

[Astrowing]

I've had tires that look perfectly good on trailers come apart also and my dad had a blow out on the freeway recently with a Buick with what looked like a good tire. I've been told that once a tire is older than 5 years that you are on borrowed time, irreguardless of number of miles.