Tire Age? Anybody Change Them for Age?
 

I just put some air in my front tires and noticed they're almost seven years old. Makes sense with a low mileage 9 year-old car. They still have at least half tread left.

Would you guys change seven year-old tires on a performance car, even though they have tread left?

Yes I would for a couple of reasons. If you can afford a performance car then you should be able to put new rubber on it. Why compromise the performance? Safety, peace of mind would justify it.

Craig, I'm in the same boat with my 964's tires. They only have 7-8k miles on them, and I will probably replace them for age next year.

If you actually drive it, then yes. If it is a rolling chassis or sitting waiting for restoration, etc. then no.

An old tire that isn't flat spotted, delaminating, dry rotted, etc. is PROBABLY fine. On the other hand, if you are taking a corner at 35mph do you really want to find out what happens with a sudden and extreme failure?

It's not the cost. The tires are being change as I type. It just that there is so much conflicting information about tire age. Of course the tire manufactures say they age-out. They sell tires. I was just curious how many of you guys would change them.

I just did..put a set of Continintals on my '09 Mustang at 24,000 miles. Original BFG's still had good tread..

I recently bought a 4y old 991 that came with low miles, and stock tires. They looked perfect. They felt like they were made of wood... 4 yrs !! Sometimes it's age, sometimes it heat cycles... Yeah if you are asking, go ahead and replace them. Tires are the difference between a fender bender, a ditch visit, and a happy day. Them and brake stuff are an area not to be stingy...

I plan to do a couple track events this year, so for piece I mind I took them straight to Tire Man for replacement. After I got there (and got the invoice), I started wondering if I was just being OCD. I guess better safe than sorry.

Keep one or all of the old ones, and take a look at the insides, perhaps cut one apart. Get a inexpensive new current tire and compare, see if the old ones were delaminating, etc.

Since I got a take home company car 12 years ago, all my tires have been replaced due to age rather than wear.

I read (who knows if it's actually true) tires shouldn't be used past six years of age for safety reasons. Like "Idi0t" said, if it's just a roller you're working on in the garage, they should be OK for that. I'm in the same situation with my car. I won't be driving on my old tires.

Yes, I've changed them several times for age. I've seen numerous failures (not all mine) and I've had many tires come apart when on the tire changing machine, just from age. They all looked fine on the outside and some of them had zero miles.

JR

Do it all the time. I have a collection of vehicles that have been sitting w timed-out tires. My tire dealer thinks that I'm a gift from god, thousands spent. :(

As far as when they are done, I go by hardness and other observable clues as well as date codes. MC tires are the most critical, IMO. Couple years and they're done, good tread or not.

when I bought my old MGB it had been sitting in one spot for 10 years. The tires were new when it was parked. I ended up having to replace then because they were egg shaped permanently. Same deal with my 914 in storage for 12 years.

On my fun cars, they get changed. On my truck (don't use it that much) and other vehicles, I leave then on and drive them until they get close to the wear bars. Normally, they are worn after 6 or 7 years so they get new tires. like many of us in socal, (just think of all the gardeners and others with very on old tires on our roads) we just keep on rolling them. I have driven on 7-8 year old tires, and they have been fine

I did on both the pcar and a jeep I'm working on. I have a friend (ie someone I can trust) that sells tires and he said "cheap money to avoid a blowout"

Peace of mind.

That would depend on how I drove it. I change out the tires on my 911 because it gets a significant amount of it's miles on the track. My '47 Dodge truck has 10 year old tires and I figure they're good for another 10 years. I never drive it over 45 mph. Well - sometimes I get wild and run it up to 55.

Weird... How do you get tires on a Porsche to last more than 2 driving seasons? Oh, maybe you aren't 'driving' it...

It seems like I cant keep tires on the back of my hotrod 930...

how long did those back tires last ya? When I drove my hotrod 930, they would last 8000 miles. aggressive neg camber and 315 tires will do it every time

I have no street tires older than 7 years old. I have a few sets on old rims I use for rolling project cars around. However, I never drive on old tires.

A new sets of Michelins for my 911 are $600. Spread out over 7 years that's only $85/year.

I NEVER cheap out on brakes or tires.

I would, yes. You don't want this to happen at highway speeds. Notice it has plenty of tread left but they were several years old.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1485292046.jpg

7 year old Kumos, plenty of tread left, car sits in the garage so no sun rot. Two Christmases ago I was driving home on I-4 doing around 65-70 with traffic in the center lane. No hot dogging or lane weaving just simply puttin along. Driver side rear all of the sudden goes ba-boom-boom! This followed of course by the azz-end trying to immediately kick out from me. Took everything I had to get it under control, not collide with anyone else, or put myself in a position where someone then collides with me. Upon finally getting it to the shoulder I see the only thing left of the tire was the side walls. There will never be any procrastination ever again on my part, 5 years tops.

Two words: "Paul Walker".

Besides excessive speed, the very old, hard tires on the Carrera GT were at fault for the Rodas crash.
Heard that it still had the original factory tires on it.

Old tires get hard and slick, even with tread left.


I had an 8 y.o. tire with tons of tread left just fall apart like Esel's... was only going about 40, though.

WOW! I feel a little stupid now. The car was pushing like a pig in corners, especially throttle on understeer. I read on the Rennlist Turbo forum that Porsche builds in understeer intentionally to make the car safer. I put in more negative camber and a GT2 adjustible rear sway bar before my last track event. That helped a little, but she still pushed. The fronts must have been heat cycled into stone. With the new front tires, she turns in like a go-kart. I can even get some over-steer.

The right rear had a plug/patch, so I ended up replacing them all. That was $1,500 I hadn't budgeted for :eek:

Good tires for that car are expensive. Which ones did you go for?

It is like putting the right shoes on a super athlete, though. Maximum effect. :cool:

I don't think I've ever had a set of tires last that long. If I did, then yes, I probably would.

5 years ago, 2011 had a 92 Range Rover. The tires on it when I got it were 92 Michelins by date code with good tread. That's 19 years old. The sidewalls dried out and started cracking. While driving down the highway the rubber finally started falling off the sidewalls. The steel belts kept us from crashing as they maintained the basic roundness as we slowed and stopped. It didn't blow out as much as started hissing.

The tires I replaced them with I also got with the Truck. They were Goodyear Wranglers with 1993 date codes. They still had the stickers on them and the previous owner told me they had been stored in a dark corner of a hanger. They did NOT look dried out and there were no visible cracks in the rubber. Still looked new rode like new when I sold the truck a year later. Mostly sat in my garage except for short trips to the store.

Tires do last longer stored in the dark as UV is the tire killing nemesis.

Michelin Pilot Sport PS2 235/35ZR19 305/30/ZR19. Huge improvement in handling! Those fronts were seriously greasy.

This car was in Palm Beach FL from new (2008) until 2010. The first owner put 26,000 miles on it. Second owner was in Dallas from 2010 until I bought it in April 2015. I bought it with 28,200 miles, so the Dallas owner hardly drove it. My guess is the original owner put on new fronts right before he sold it.

I've got a set of really old tires on a set of Phone Dials.

The grip in wet from those tires is absolutely awful. The grip is figuratively like sliding two pieces of polished granite on each other with an oil film between.

Coming from a lightweight hot rod, I was very disappointed in the handling of this car. Now I'm just disappointed that I didn't realize the tires were 7 years old. It feels like I corner balanced it and slapped on some Hoosiers. Now I actually like the car :D

I never go more than 5 years on tires. I'm frequently amazed how much of a difference replacing "good" tires can make.

I change tires based on age. I don't drive much, maybe 9k a year, so the pull date comes up before the treads wear down. I try to change at 6 years max, but if there is dry rot, they are replaced sooner.

I'm concerned that old tires are good tires, but certainly not great tires, as I casually light a cigarette.

I once bought some brand new Kumos for a Honda Civic. A lightweight highway work vehicle.

But less than three years later the tires were out of balance, and almost shredded.
A major safety issue.

I will not purchase Kumos again.

Yes. The operative being "performance car". 5 years is the outside for anything you intend to push hard.

When I met my gf we would go out here and there. She was pretty meticulous about cleaning her car so I sent it to my detailer. When we picked it up she was happy, but that was when I noticed her tires were dry rotted. I told her don't drive it too much as I need to get new tires. I showed her the cracks and she said the car is only 5 years old and has 10k on it. I told her it was not very safe so she needed new tires. After I got her new tires, she told me no guy ever did that for her. :)

Hell yes, especially trailer tires. Most trailers tend to be over loaded, old tires don't help. 5K pound car, you should have a trailer rated for 10K.....

Dry rot doesn't always show as cracks in the side walls. There is a reason tires are date stamped.

I figure tires are about as important as anything on the car. It would sort of depend on a few things, with age being an important consideration. I drove on old tires, they looked worse than the date code suggested, but it was sitting outside. Drove the 914 from where it was, to a gas station on the way to my brother's house, put it up on stands, took the wheels in and got some tires, kept the speed down, inside of tire looked okay, but they were hard as a rock. Driving at much over what I would drive in a neighborhood is not something I would do on old tires.

Miata had these Chinese tires on it when I got it, they were about 4 years old. High performance tire, with the primary consideration apparently being long tread life. They had plenty of tread left on them when I replaced them. I hated those tires. Loud, feeble grip, very vocal when in the process of giving up said meager amount of traction. It was a revelation when I put decent tires on it.

Life is to short to drive on crappy tires.

NO....

The thing that tires need is to be used. The flexing of the tire distributes the lubricant in the rubber making them last.

Just sitting, that does NOT happen. Whether stacked in the corner or on a garage queen.

The tires become failure points.

Even if they still have stickers on them, they are dangerous.

18k miles in 12 years. Changed tires once.