Tire Date Code decifer?

[archtech]

Got some Fuchs with tires that look fine on them, but concerned about the age.
Can anyone make sense of this code? Tires look fine... is it safe?


DOT B E U N D 3 1 1 1 6 8
BF Goodrich Touring TA HR4

Thanks!

[Arne2]

The 8 at the end indicates a year that ends in 8. And I think they went to 2 digit year codes by 2008, so those are probably 1998 at the newest. Even 2008 is older than I'd want to use.

[HarryD]

I have a set of 09 BFG's. For my tires, the numbers following the DOT are 3 groups of 4.

For tires after 2000, there is a date code in the format "wwyy" where ww is the number of the week (01-52) and the yy is the last two digits of the year.

Prior to 2000, the date code was three digits (wwy).

These web sites may be helpful:
Geeks On Cars: How to Find the Age of BF Goodrich Tires
Tire Care and Maintenance|How do I know how old my tires are?|BFGoodrich Tires
Barry's Tire Tech

Showing the data in groups and/or a picture would help.

[Arne2]

Thanks, HarryD. I thought the dates went to 4 digits in 2000, but couldn't remember for certain.

That being so, and since the next to last digit is a 6 and can't be a year digit (as 4 digit code can't have a next to last digit of anything other than 0 or 1), those tires were built in the 16th week of '98 or maybe '88. So at very best, they are approaching 18 years old.

[rick-l]

From the link that HarryD posted

To determine between tires manufactured after the 1980s, a small triangle was placed at the end of the time stamp to indicate the tire was manufactured in the 1990s.