When I bought my 93 earlier this year, it had Continental extreme contacts on it. They looked good for tread and didn’t see much in the way dry cracking, so I didn’t give it much thought. I’ve driven probably 500-750 miles since I got it. I checked the date code the other day 3613 so they are almost 10 years old. Decent tread life left but am I pushing my luck? I do see a few cracks here and there in the valleys of the tread. Trying to plan my maintenance priorities for next driving season.
thanks

 

I probably wouldn't feel too nervous with them for lower speed local driving. But long road trips or any kind of higher speed driving, I wouldn't feel as comfortable.

 

I would plan on replacing them. Tires that are 10 years old are way past their usable lifespan.

 

I would weigh the cost of new tires versus the cost of any body damage/accident due too a tire blowing out at speed.

 

I think it might make some difference how the car has been stored. In a dark garage or out in the sun in Arizona. Dan

 

Or "body" damage, to you. You ever notice all those trailers, boat trailers, home yard trailers, trailers people haul mowers and RV trailers on that are sitting on the side of the road with flat tires ? Well those folks couldn't accept tires that have the majority of tread left but are out of date need to be replaced. They can't get past the tread depth factor.

Tires need to be exercised to keep the chemicals within them circulating.

If you are running an old tire (age wise) and suffer a blow out, which causes an accident with property damage or god forbid, bodily injury or death, and the investigators catch on that you are running "old" tires, well guess what........

 

The tires need replacement.

They are 10 years old. That is too much for safety/reliability due to the tire materials aging.

You said "didn’t see much in the way dry cracking" and "I do see a few cracks here and there in the valleys of the tread." If you see any cracking it is evidence that the tire material has deteriorated.

Yes they may hold air and drive around, but there is a chance of catastrophic failure. The chances of failure go up with speed.

They also become hard and lose grip, so if you replace them you may notice they handle and grip better, they have a smoother ride, etc, so there is an improvement in driving the car with fresh tires.

Good luck.

 

Exactly what he said. Those tires are old, brittle, rubber is hard. Not very grippy on the road, especially if wet, and need replacing. Storing indoors or out doesn't change their age, and having sufficient tread on them just means more old rubber. Get new tires. And they will never be cheaper than they are now, undoubtedly the cost will be rising as does everything else. And check the date code on new tires you buy, you don't want to buy something from the shelf that's a year old already.

 

...

 

Tires should come off at about 7 years old, so I'd definitely plan on getting those replaced.

For some daily driving they may be okay, but do not get spirited.

 

A lot of this is incorrect.

First,, most of the time when you see someone on the side of the road, it's not due to outdated tires, it's due to those tires shredding hitting something.

Insurance will not look to see what the date on your tires are. The idea that they would is preposterous.

Bottom line, old tires get hard. They lose compliance as the plasticizers degrade, making them less grippy. They're not landmines. They're tires with less grip. If you bought good tires up front, they may degrade to a grip level of a non performance tire.

It's a fairly.low investment to replace them, and I would recommend doing so. But the ramifications of tire age are massively overstated. Think of it this way, if tires only lasted 5 years like people claim, you'd be replacing your spare tire that often. And 99% of people have never replaced their spare tires.

 

Once again, some bullshit. I live by the highway. I see LOTs and LOTs of trailers with blown tires and nothing to hit. Smooth fresh asphalt.

My dad worked for Goodyear, designing tires, my buddy's wife retired from the labs doing analysis, destructive testing. Our families know a bit about tires. One of my dad's design programs was even used as a Super Bowl ad.

If you cause an accident that results in the death of someone, you can bet your *** they are going to be looking into causes, especially the Highway Patrol and other investigators. Your insurance isn't going to let the cat out of the bag, but the other people's would. There was also an accident investigator/expert witness that I met on the site here that looked into all kinds of things. There is a big difference between a tire failing and a tire failing due to age especially when a person can be hung with negligence for driving on old tires.

I wrote insurance for a while, so I know a bit about negligence and fault.

I pull a trailer, I have pulled lots of trailers, horse trailers, BIG horse trailers (30 ft with living quarters) 30 ft travel trailers and still have, yard trailer. I know a bit about trailers and their tires.

 

One of the things to consider about trailer tire failure is their diameter. They are many times smaller in diameter, sometimes substantially smaller in diameter than the tow vehicle. If the tow vehicle is traveling 70mph, the trailer tire rotations will be greater which generates more heat. Its the heat that tears them up. People drive too fast pulling trailers. Truck doing 70mph and you might as well consider the dinky diameter trailer tires as doing 100mph. Burning up the rubber and wheel bearings too.

 

"ST" "Special Trailer" designated tires are only rated for 65 mph. The other thing that people do is run with too small a load rating. You are better running a Load Range E trailer tire even though you don't need one weight wise. Load E's tolerate heat better. I did a lot of research before I started pulling ours out to Nebraska and back, running across 80 and either up 2 at Grand Island or all the way to Sidney and up that way to Alliance.

Once I started checking tire temps, the E's always run significantly cooler.

use this for a Google search

tire degradation from age

there are lots of law firms, tire sites, car sites and such all with write ups about the dangers of old tires. is is a subject of great notice

 

Thanks for the thoughts folks. It’s on my before spring to do list!

 

With the others...good brand to replace them with though.

Have a set on a toy that are now 8 yrs old, less than 100 miles on them.
Only seen daylight a few times they look brand new. Irks me..but gonna replace them anyways
No way am I gonna risk a wreck or folding a quarter panel up; these are probably flat spotted permanently anyways being track tires. That and Im guessing hard as a rock they just may be ok for a bit just not willing to chance folding up a 1/4. Or failing during WOT at triple digits.
Had a rear tire literally unravel on me yrs back I couldnt have been doing more than 20mph test driving a vehicle. Didnt make it 50 yds from the driveway

 

https://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Doc...el_4b_Kane.pdf

NTSB (government) acknowledges that there are no good regulations. Per the above document, some states have considered age for failing inspections but no laws advanced.

this is a very informative read about a study

https://www.tirereview.com/decoding-...-aging-report/

Also keep in mind that the US is a very litigationist society. Companies open themselves up for publishing things. So if (IF - HYPOTHETICAL) GM said in print that it was OK to run a tire for 10 years and a tire failed due to age at 7, it will be argued in court that the victim followed their (GM - hypothetical) recommendations and they will lose the court case. After all, if someone can win a case from McDonalds over hot coffee, following a published recommendation is a sure way to a stack of cash.

My buddy inherited a car his dad had stuck in the garage with only a few 1000 miles. It sat in the dark, but it sat in one place. Much like my travel trailer. We took a 150 mile 1 way trip, on the way back (it was a cold day thank goodness) the car started getting a vibration. It turns out those perfectly good looking tires, no age cracking, no sign of anything, were coming apart from the inside.

I told my wife that even though we have only a few 100 miles on the trailer tires, due to circumstances of us not being able to go camping, we will need to throw away some perfectly good tires, soon.

It all depends on how much you value you life, your property etc. The typical tire is worn out long before age becomes a factor. It is tires on the oddball vehicle that isn't driven daily that are the culprits.

 

Oh sh-----t! You wacked the bees nest.

 

On my F350 I replace the tires (including the spare) every 5 years regardless of how they look. We even had 2 fail (opposite corners) on an 8k mile cross country trip towing the 5th wheel that were only 4.5 years old. Our 5th wheel is a big sum bish @ 39ft long, 13.5ft tall and 13k# The 5th wheel tires got replaced when new with those joke Chinabombs underrated E tires from the factory to load range G

Screw the other motorists on the road mentality for legal concerns of tire replacement. Our family of 6 is my concern and more important than putting off tire replacement for another year. They will still need replaced, and will never be cheaper than "today".


Not all trailer tire failures are due to age or hitting something in the road. If so the tow vehicle would have hit it too and would have flats as well

As stated above trailer, ST, tires for the most part are speed limited to 65mph. Not all are tho. You have to do your research to find the good ones that are actually rated to 80mph, and know how to read load tables, match psi to rims, and understand max pressure doesn't always mean the pressure to run them at. The chalk test is still a great way to find your vehicle's ideal psi. The Goodyear marathon vs endurance differences being an excellent example of trailer tire inadequacy.

Just a few years back there was even an issue of motorhomes having the same tires as delivery trucks from the factory, but the tires were only rated for 45mph. Lots of lawsuits when "new" RVs had catastrophic blowouts on the highways. Delivery trucks rarely hit 45mph, so were fine with those tires, RVs @ 65mph, not so much. The tire manufacturer was at fault for not posting the speed rating in that instance

That said for some reason Dodge owners are the worst @ driving 80+mph on under inflated, or under load range tires, hard to tell which but you can see them bulging and squishy. Countless times they have flown past us at ludicrous speeds, but we usually pass them again and wave as they are fueling up or kicking flat tires on the shoulder.

10 yr old bicycle tires, sure. Vehicles, nope. A lot of tire shops won't even mount 5yr old tires if you do winter tire, or MT to AT swaps

 

FWIW, if you have a garage queen and want to extend the useful life of the tires get them nitrogen filled.
Most of the oxidation damage to the rubber leading to cracking and belt separation come from the pressurized oxygen in the air inside the tire.
This won't stop degradation of the plasticizers over time or UV damage from the sun.
The nitrogen fill is common practice for aircraft tires.