Tires Too Old??

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Here's the scenario....

Mom's car, older driver, now only uses the car locally since my dad passed away to go shopping, run errands, low speed 30-40ish in town driving. Maybe drives 100 miles a month, mint '93 Buick Regal.

Tires were premium BF Goodrich installed in 10/2000 and have about 30k miles on them. Car is always garaged, very little sun exposure.

The tires look absolutly mint, with no cracking whatsoever, almost never need air etc. Car seems to ride and handle just fine when I drive it.

Should I keep the old, premium tires, or buy Mom a set of new, cheapo tires? With some recent job cutbacks on my side, money, while not a crisis, could be used for other repairs on mom's house if not used on tires.

Drew
 
This sounds like my 76 year old dad, he drives less than 3K miles per year.

I would keep the tires since:

- She drives so few miles per week/month
- She drives slow 40 MPH
- The tires are NOT leaking any air
- The tires have no dry rot or cracks

If she had to drive at highway speeds every day, then I would seriously consider new tires.
 
UV seems to be the main killer of my tires, not wear. Id get 75-100k out of most any set of tires on our cars if it wasnt for large cracks in the treads. 6 years is the killer, there is always >>50% tread at 30-50k, which is what is on them when we replace due to said cracking.

If there is no UV issues, Id not worry.
 
Drew,

You've just posted the exact reason why the tire manufacturers are reluctant to give clear cut age limits on tires.

In Phoenix, for example, tires highly exposed to the sunlight, operated at high speed, underinflated, could be in need of removal in as little as 2 1/2 years.

How can you explain the large difference? More importantly, how can guidelines be structured so that good advice is given without appearing to advocate premature removal (and be accused of trying to sell more tires!)

I agree with all the advice given. But you should monitoor the tires closely. I'll bet they are cracked now, but the cracks are pretty tiny. Look especially in the tread grooves. Some sidewall compounds use a rubber that is resistant to cracking, but you can't use that type of rubber in the tread, so the tread is a better indicator - and the bottom of the grooves is usually the first place cracking starts.
 
Keeping the tires on there is what I would do. Monitor them often for dry rotting and pressure changes. If it's a whitewall, check around the whitewall itself as some BF Goodrich were known to develop dry-rot around the seam.
 
Drew, I'd use them too, BUT before committing to that, I'd check the manufacture date. It's stamped on the tire in a code. I forget how to read this but you can search and get the procedure on this site. If they were made near when you bought them, great and you're good to go. If they were made 15 years ago, you only get one Mom.
 
3 digit code in an oval if the tires were made prior to 2000:
XXY; where XX = week number; Y = year, so 489 means 48th week of 1999.

4 digit code in an oval if the tires were made in 2000 or later:
XXYY; where XX = week number; YY = year, so 4800 means 48th week of 2000.
 
I have lost 2 tires this year for no appearant reason. They just suddenly developed big cracks all over. One was quite old, serving as the spare on the truck through several other sets of tires. With the mostly short trips around town, tires last a long time even if disappointing number of miles. Perhap Michlin is lucky I never bought a set they warrenteed for 90K.

The other was on the car, much newer, but still several years old, I think a Kelly Navagator.

I think tires used to last a longer time. I am still using 3 of the 4 tires that came on my lawnmower in 1973. I wore all the tread off the right front mowing in circles. I know enough about compounding rubber to know you can save money by skimping on stablizer and accepting a shorter life. The UL discouraged the wire company I once worked for from doing that. People that drive a lot wear their tires out in a year or 2. The tire companies may figure those that drive less can replace theirs after 5 years too. If they go away mad, they won't lose that much business.

I would at least keep a close watch on any tire over 3 years old.
 
Originally Posted By: ChiTDI
Drew, I'd use them too, BUT before committing to that, I'd check the manufacture date. It's stamped on the tire in a code. I forget how to read this but you can search and get the procedure on this site. If they were made near when you bought them, great and you're good to go. If they were made 15 years ago, you only get one Mom.


That's a good point. I think they were bought from a high-volume tire store and if my fuzzy memory serves me, they were a "new" BFG design and rated highly in Consumer Reports (that's why Dad bought them), but I'll definitely check the date codes next time I visit. FWIW, they are BFG "Control T/A M80".

As a kid, I worked in a local gas station and boy, some of the "new" tires they occasionally sold were ancient.

Drew
 
One question...how would she fare with a blowout and being stranded? Does she have the skills to drive under that scenario? Cell phone etc?
 
Originally Posted By: PT1
One question...how would she fare with a blowout and being stranded? Does she have the skills to drive under that scenario? Cell phone etc?


She's a good driver and in good health with a cell phone and auto-club. Remember, this is sururban LI....you can't go 10 feet without tripping over a strip-mall, gas station or shopping center, not really "rural" ;).

Drew
 
I posted this in another thread here, you may have seen it already, but for those that haven't, here you go. I wouldn't sweat using the tires.

From the September 2008 issue of Motor Magazine;
Quote:
If none of your customers has asked you about tire aging yet, chances are they will soon. While concerns about tire aging have been around for years, recent media attention has turned it into something of a hot-button issue. The question basically is this: Should you discard tires based on a date code just like you would a carton of milk?

Dan Zielinski, Senior Vice President, Public Affairs, for the Rubber Manufacturers Association in Washington, DC, told me that his association "does not recommend a removal date for tires based on age because there's no scientific information to back it up." He explained that extensive studies of thousands of junkyard tires do not back up the notion that tires just deteriorate with time.
...
I asked Jim Davis, spokesman for Goodyear Tire and Rubber, about the problem of aging tires. Davis said: "There is no scientific evidence that leads to the conclusion that there should be a tire service limit. Different groups have studied it. Different companies have studied it. Tire companies have studied it. Nobody has come out with any kind of report indicating any kind of scientific data to support a specified tire service life."
...
NHTSA's position on tire aging is to "follow the manufacturer's recommendations. Some major vehicle and tire manufacturers have made recommendations about when you should replace tires even if they don't appear to be worn."

Some manufacturers would like to see tires replaced after six years, some after ten years. What about the idea called for by some safety experts of replacing tires that are six years old even if they don't appear to be worn? According to Tyson, "that six-year clock is pretty much at the conservative end of the various recommendations that are out there. The problem is there is a pretty wide range of differences depending on the region of the country you live in. On vehicles that have been in a warm climate like what you would find in the southern part of the United States, tire aging seems to be a greater issue than up in Maine, for example. For most vehicles that are used on a regular basis it's not an issue because you'll wear out the tires before they get old."


Alex.
 
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