I went to local tire dealer to get 6 new Michelin tires. I asked if they had my size in stock, and yes they had 6 in stock. I asked about DOT date codes, and the salesperson stated that they would all be 2015 codes. Great! I then asked price, and he stated that he would beat the FMCA price by $5/tire. I made an appt for the next day. I go down to get tires installed, stupid me, I checked the date code on the 1st 4 tires, and they are all "1517". All is good. They install all the tires, and after checking the final 2 tires I see date code "1312" and "1314". Uh oh Houston we have a problem! I go inside and tell salesperson, I am not happy. The manager comes out and gives me the "don't worry so much about date code story, and that they are kept in a warehouse in a controlled environment." I wouldn't accept them, and I told him to put my old tires back on one side dually. He says hold on and let me check around. Low and behold nobody has my size, so he makes me an interesting choice: 1) keep the tires with the older date codes and pay only for mount/balance of each tire, or 2) keep older date code tires until they locate new tires and pay for mount balance now and only the new tires when they come in without additional labor to install. My prior tires were 5 years old and had 90,000 miles on them. What would you do and why?

It is a quandary. You could keep the older tires and only pay for installation. You would get a few years from them before they need replaced.Or, you could pay for installation, use the older tires until the new ones arrive and only pay for the tires.Do you trust the tire dealer? Will they honor their agreement?Personally, I would go with the first option. It seems you would be getting the tires for free, even if they would need replaced in a couple years.

I would keep the two tires and have them both mounted on the rear inside....

I'd go with the first option only. Reason being, the deal will be completed now, so there is no worry that they will weasel out of the deal later. If you go with option 2, you could end up fighting over the new tires when they come in.

GENECOP wrote:I would keep the two tires and have them both mounted on the rear inside....I thought of that, but they were already installed on the one dually side. Changing them would require taking them off the rims and rebalance and then remount. Dealer didn't want to do that as the coach was already off the jacks.

If you put 90,000 miles in 5 years I wouldn't worry too much about the older date codes.

Tire quandary | Good Sam Community

robertbenita
Explorer
Jun 28, 2015
Not ideal, but sounds like you made out ok!
FIRE_UP
Explorer
Jun 28, 2015
Cbones wrote:
FIRE UP wrote:
Cbones,
I'm kind-a laughing here. You stated you checked the first four tires and the date codes are "1517" Now, normally, as you saw in the date codes of the last two tires "1312" & "1314", the numbers are laid out in such a manor that it's the week first and the year second. If true, that make your first four tires, made in the 15th week of 2017. Hmmmmm. So, your first statement of "1517" I'm assuming was maybe a bit of fat finger syndrome or, a basic Freudian slip. (I have those daily).

I'm presupposing that it should read " 1715 ".
Scott

Scott,
You probably didn't read all the posts, but if you check my prior posts, you will see that I already begged for forgiveness for my dyslexia ;)

Cbones,
Sorry Sir, for not catching the correction earlier. Mine was more of a jokingly comment anyways. I've done the same thing only a few zillion times myself. Don't ya just love getting old?
Scott
Jim
Explorer
Jun 28, 2015
The problem is the tire formulation. RV tires...are notorious for being made 'soft'. This allows the kind of sidewall flexing that RVer's like because of the nice smooth ride. But it also causes early sidewall failures. In addition, the softer rubber composition is often blamed for that type tires lack of UV tolerance.

As a result of these issues, many RV'ers will refuse new tires from a dealer if it's older than a few months. Especially if we've specifically told them we wanted NEW tires no more then 6 months old.

And then there is the problem of RV tires just sitting for months at a time. A 'RV' tire doesn't tolerate that very well. Especially if it's already been sitting in a warehouse for years prior to mounting on an RV.
Kayteg1
Explorer II
Jun 28, 2015
OP originally corrected the data code, but as usually it would be nice to know all the details up front, before 2 pages of speculation starts.
90,000 miles on tires are not telling much about life on them. if you don't know the size and brand.
Michelin makes tires lasting 600,000 miles in commercial size.
I got over 100,000k on Hankooks on my dually pickup and replaced them due the deterioration still with usable tread.
Anyway, sounds like good decision was made as 2 years old "stock" got for free is a good deal and again, I have seen heavy tires lasting for over 20 years with proper care, so what is the problem?
Cbones
Explorer
Jun 28, 2015
FIRE UP wrote:
Cbones,
I'm kind-a laughing here. You stated you checked the first four tires and the date codes are "1517" Now, normally, as you saw in the date codes of the last two tires "1312" & "1314", the numbers are laid out in such a manor that it's the week first and the year second. If true, that make your first four tires, made in the 15th week of 2017. Hmmmmm. So, your first statement of "1517" I'm assuming was maybe a bit of fat finger syndrome or, a basic Freudian slip. (I have those daily).

I'm presupposing that it should read " 1715 ".
Scott

Scott,
You probably didn't read all the posts, but if you check my prior posts, you will see that I already begged for forgiveness for my dyslexia ;)
FIRE_UP
Explorer
Jun 28, 2015
Cbones,
I'm kind-a laughing here. You stated you checked the first four tires and the date codes are "1517" Now, normally, as you saw in the date codes of the last two tires "1312" & "1314", the numbers are laid out in such a manor that it's the week first and the year second. If true, that make your first four tires, made in the 15th week of 2017. Hmmmmm. So, your first statement of "1517" I'm assuming was maybe a bit of fat finger syndrome or, a basic Freudian slip. (I have those daily).

I'm presupposing that it should read " 1715 ".
Scott
Cbones
Explorer
Jun 27, 2015
Executive wrote:
Cbones, I'm the one who should be apologizing....so please accept my apologies. I acted too hastily in my post. mea culpa.

Question though, why would you put the older tires on the front? I wouldn't have too much trouble putting them on the tag, but I would think you would put them on the outside duals. If I were concerned about losing a tire, I wouldn't want that on the front. Any reason you chose to put them on the steer axle?

Thanks.....Dennis

Apology accepted, thanks no harm no foul.

Putting on the steer axle was a suggestion by another poster. I would have put them on the inside duals to minimize sun exposure, but they were already mounted together on the left dually, and the dealer already took the coach off the jacks so I decided to just leave them. Originally he was planning to replace them with fresh tires, so it was easier to put them on one dually and then replace only the one side of the coach.
toedtoes
Explorer III
Jun 27, 2015
Executive wrote:
Cbones, I'm the one who should be apologizing....so please accept my apologies. I acted too hastily in my post. mea culpa

Thank you for being adult enough to admit your mistake - we see to little of that on the internet. :)
Executive45
Explorer III
Jun 27, 2015
Cbones, I'm the one who should be apologizing....so please accept my apologies. I acted too hastily in my post. mea culpa.

That said, you should get lots of good wear out of the Michelins. As to wearing them out, I have 60,000 on my Goodyears and like you, I look to get another couple years out of them before they wear out. I do have one that started to river so I'm watching that one closely, but it appears to be doing ok.

Question though, why would you put the older tires on the front? I wouldn't have too much trouble putting them on the tag, but I would think you would put them on the outside duals. If I were concerned about losing a tire, I wouldn't want that on the front. Any reason you chose to put them on the steer axle?

Thanks.....Dennis
2oldman
Explorer II
Jun 27, 2015
Trolls are 99.9% new members with nothing in their profiles, posting once.

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