Tire Date Code

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In doing some much needed garage clean up I found a tire/wheel combo that looks to be from The 1966 Mustang we have. The date code on the wheel is September 1965. What looks to be the tire date code is N97E000. It is a BF Goodrich Silvertown 880. Can anyone decode the date code and tell me if this was original to the car or the approximate build date of the tire? Thanks.
 
A date code would have most likely been 3 digits back in those days, if they had a date code at all.

Do you see any 3 digit codes on the tire?

If not, send an email to the manufacturer and ask them if they can help determine their age.
 
there are other numbers and letters on the tires but they look to be generic and are proud to the surface. The code above was stamped into a rectangular "window" on the tire and look like they were stamped with a changeable indexing device; maybe once a week, once a day, etc.
 
If I recall correctly, the current date coding system went into affect in 1968 or so. At that time it was a 3 digit week/week/year layout, but that date code was part of a 10 digit TIN (Tire Identification Number), with the date code at the end. The system was modified in the mid 1900's to add a decade arrow, then further modified, starting in mid 1999 and completed in 2000, to a 4 digit system (week/week/year/year), which how it appears now.

Prior to that, each manufacturer had their own system (or not!) - and there was no commonality between manufacturers.

So a BFG tire from the mid sixties would have whatever BFG was using back then.

I'll bet that no one knows what that system was - given that Goodrich merged with Uniroyal in 1987, and was later acquired by Michelin in 1990, so whatever was used back then was probably lost in the shuffle.

Just an FYI, the current TIN system is a 11 to 13 digit system with the first 2 or 3 digits indicating the plant of manufacture (starting in April, 2015), the second group of 2 digits is a size code (manufacturers must use a system of some sort and many use the USTMA coding), the next 3 or 4 digits are the type coding (only the manufacturer knows what those mean - if anything!), and the last 4 digits are the date code. In April of 2025, the 3 digit plant code becomes mandatory.

See my web page for more details Barry's Tire Tech - DOT Codes
 
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