Are my tires splitting?

[Woodyhfd]

Today, I removed my Winter tires and reinstalled my Summer tires. When I was putting the fronts on, I spotted what appears to be the start of a split around the circumference of the tire. I'm not absolutely sure, because in the grooves of the tire, there also appear to be three lines of molding flash from when the tires were made. What looks like a split is right along these lines.

They are Michelin Pilots with less than 15k miles on them.

What do you think?

[porsche930dude]

yep startin to dry out. how old are they?

[GaryR]

How old are they? Were they stored in bags in a warm place? Could just be the pictures/lighting but the rubber looks hard/old to me.

[Arne2]

Looks like they've seen some track time? The extra heat cycles from that can do that to deep tread street rubber.

[Woodyhfd]

About 5 years old, no track time, not stored in bags in a warm place.

[wildcat077]

They are definitely dried out ... it's a shame because they still have a lot of tread left !

Cheers !
Phil

[69-912-swt]

Check the date code on the sidewalls. They might be older than you think.

[67flat4]

Originally Posted by 69-912-swt

check the date code on the sidewalls. They might be older than you think.

x2

[Porsche Doc]

It's called Dry Rot...

[ant7]

Had the same on a pair of pirreli's on the front of my 3.2, except they had gone on the sidewall where it meets the tread, quite bad, when i checked the dates they were from 1997, so well past their best, needless to say i changed them and the car drove a lot better due to the rubber on the new ones being a lot softer than those that had obviously dried out and gone hard.
Good job you spotted it.
Anthony.

[Woodyhfd]

Date code is 0806, which should be Feb 2006.

[HarryD]

Maybe you should try contacting a Michelin dealer to see if they can give you some compensation.

[Woodyhfd]

I've contacted Michelin, but haven't heard back yet.

[McLovin]

Will be interesting to see what they say.

But I think they may view tires that are now over 6 years old as beyond their life expectancy.

[GaryR]

IF they bother responding with more than a form letter (which I doubt even that will happen) the fact that the tires were dismounted, were not stored "properly" (no UV exposure and median temperatures), and that they are over 6 years old it's time to buy new tires...

From their site -
"How to Store Your Tires
Store your tires in a clean, cool and dark location away from heat or gas. Preferably under a tire cover, which you can purchase at your local tire dealer or auto parts store.
If your tires are mounted on rims, stack them underneath a tire cover. (When stacking tires, be sure to stack no more than four tires for safety reasons.)
If you tires are not mounted on rims, store them upright and cover. Do not stack on top of each other or hang from ceiling.
If your tires have whitewall or raised white lettering, store them with the whitewall or raised white lettering facing each other. Otherwise, black rubber could stain them. (The results are not pretty.)"

[KTL]

Michelins, while good tires, seem to dry out faster than most that i've seen. My wife's car had Michelin MXXM4 tires on it from new and when they were done, they were DONE. The cracking on them was quite bad.

The rubber on yours doesn't look too bad. But the lines you see can be from lateral stressing. Here's a picture of a Hankook R compound (old Z211 competition tire) that overheated due to lack of shaving & camber.

[john walker's workshop]

over 5 years old, so they're hard and done. hard means less traction, more likely to skid.

[Woodyhfd]

Originally Posted by GaryR

IF they bother responding with more than a form letter (which I doubt even that will happen) the fact that the tires were dismounted, were not stored "properly" (no UV exposure and median temperatures), and that they are over 6 years old it's time to buy new tires...

From their site -
"How to Store Your Tires
Store your tires in a clean, cool and dark location away from heat or gas. Preferably under a tire cover, which you can purchase at your local tire dealer or auto parts store.
If your tires are mounted on rims, stack them underneath a tire cover. (When stacking tires, be sure to stack no more than four tires for safety reasons.)
If you tires are not mounted on rims, store them upright and cover. Do not stack on top of each other or hang from ceiling.
If your tires have whitewall or raised white lettering, store them with the whitewall or raised white lettering facing each other. Otherwise, black rubber could stain them. (The results are not pretty.)"

They were stored in a clean, cool dark location away from heat and gas and under a cover.

The tires that they were replace with for the Winter are Michelin Arctic Alpins on dedicated wheels. They were never dismounted from the rims.

I understand that time wise, I'm well beyond any warranty, but you'd think that at around $300 per tire, they might be a little more resistant to this kind of thing. I don't expect much, but I'll wait to hear what they say before I spring for a third set of Michelins for this car.

[KTL]

I had the same tires on my previous BMW M5 a few years ago and they were showing the same Michelin age i' ve seen- cracking too soon IMO.

I had some trailer tires serviced a few years back at a local Firestone shop and I was told that by law they couldn't service tires any older than five?..... eight years? Can't remember. I think that was specifically for trailer tires? Either way I had to pull out the spare and use it because I didn't want to pony up for a new tire on someone else's trailer I was borrowing.

Coincidentally, the fact that one of the trailer tires (actually the wheel itself) parted ways with the trailer and ended up wreaking havoc further down the road had nothing to do with the old tires.......

[RWebb]

If you store your tires in a clean, cool dark location away from heat and gas and under a cover, they are still going to be too hard after 6 years.

Even if you stored them in a pure nitrogen atmosphere. Rubber contains sulfide bonds which will continue to cross-link (self-vulcanize) over time.

See what the Michelin man will do, but expect to grind them up into floor mats.