I posted this as a reminder to all to check your tires and replace if they are old. I was driving home from The Daytona Turkey Run car show Friday in my '69 Z28 when my LF tire blew out. It had started a vibration about 10 miles earlier, then bang. See the photos. Paint damage, etc., now have to be fixed. Luckily only the car was damaged, plus it happened close to home instead of 100 miles away. Definitely a wakeup call. It could have been a lot worse. The BFG Radial T/As had less than 5K miles on them and looked perfect but were 12 years old. New tires are going on tomorrow. Time flies, tires get old and can easily be overlooked. My friend who I met there has a '66 Impala SS with a brand new $20K paint job, his tires were 14 years old, and he got new ones installed yesterday. Stay safe.
Thank you for the warning. I bet a lot of us hardly ever think about the age of the tires on our cars.
On my list for the spring! my tires are older :(
The person from Kelsey Tire told me that the recommended time to replace old tires is around 7-8 years. I'm on my second set of Goodyear repros - keeping a close watch on them.....using 303 coating on them to keep the rubber soft.....but I know a new set is due in a few years. I don't drive the car much (I know - shame on me), and it's in a garage......so I figure maybe 10 yrs is the furthest I'd go till I get a new set.
Cha Ching!!!!!
I found out some interesting info yesterday. I didn't know how to read DOT date codes on tires, now I do. My new tire serial numbers end in 4424, which means they were made week 44 of 2024, already over a year old when installed. The one that blew out had a date code of late 2011 but I bought them in early 2013. The rep at the tire store said this is common for tires because companies may only build a particular tire once a year if it is not a really big seller. I am also likely going to buy a 5th tire; my wife reminded me that the one I saved as a new spare is still 12 years old and only getting older in the trunk.
Just had a new set of BFG Radial T/A's put on my '69 RS. The set of T/A's that were on the car were installed back in 2007 and had hardened to the point where there was a definite degradation / harshness in ride quality. The car rides much nicer now with the new rubber.
If you are not being attentive to it, tire age will definitely sneak up on you, it did on me,
No point taking any risks - and for cars that do not accumulate a lot of miles, tread wear is not what you need to monitor.
From what I've read, tires need to be changed at least every 10 years (if not sooner), regardless of mileage.
Although in the U.S., there are no specific laws prohibiting using or servicing tires older than 10 years, many (most?) tire shops these days simply will not service a tire 10 years or older due to the potential liability involved if it were to later fail in service.
I just ran into this when I asked the shop to put one of the old T/A's on my spare and they said no way.
Richard
The NTSB has posted on their site a few reports you may find of interest on tire age vs. auto accidents based on field investigations. Now, some car manufactures are recommending changing tires after 6 to 7 years regardless of tread wear. A lot has to do with the elasticity of rubber over time regardless of wear, and leading to sudden failures, with sidewall failures being the worst. One report shows the 8-year mark of when the incidence of the tire failure trend line rose sharply.
Here is a past thread for a tire sidewall failure that was spotted only after 2 days prior to looking at the tire before I took the car out: https://www.camaros.org/forum/index.php?topic=21292.msg193983#msg193983
Though I was fortunate it was easily spotted, it shows how quickly weak areas can develop.
Mike