Danger's of old tires

parkmanaa wrote:
I do not believe this blowout was caused by age of the tire.
I believe it was a manufacturing defect(undercure). Have seen
this a few times in my long tire-industry career, but don't
remember one that lasted what, 8, 9, 10 years? A covered spare
is good indefinitely.

IMHO age, to a great degree just a marketing gimmick, has been made a scapegoat for many, many other problems with tires over the last few years.


I would take it to a qualified tire dealer and have them give me
their opinion.

40 years in the tire industry; saw it all and done most of it.

I do agree that to some degree the aging theory is a marketing gimmick, or is being made into one as a means of profiteering… few will buy this though, here anyway…

It’s true that ageing has always been a factor, as it is today, what has or is changing is that the ageing time is getting shorter without much reasonable explanation for it…

Through the years tires got better and better and tread wear mileage got higher and higher… meaning tires were on the road longer before wearing out… so as mileage went from 20 to 30 to 40 to 60 and 80 thousand miles and more, they take many more years to wear out… this leaving aging and failing carcasses still in use a big problem for us…

so new marketing gurus says you should now replace you tires at 5 or 6 years even if they look good…

This is good marketing for selling tires… but first you would have forget (they have) or believe for all those years that the tire mileage went from 20 to 80 thousand miles that tread rubber compounding is the only thing they were doing in R&D depts., all of them … all other compounding, cording, new products and processes were static and frozen in time and no one considered the fact that better tread worked in combination with or needed other better developments in the tire and in the industry…

It’s funny they used to retread 7 year old passenger tires, many tires are retreaded many times over even today… why is it that these carcasses aren’t aging out and taken out of service…

My own personal experience is that tires have lasted 10 years often and sometimes much longer and I mean all types of tires…

As the acceptance for the new aging theory grows, and it is, so will cheaper made reversed engineered tires… and the only losers are as usual are the end users… who will pay more tomorrow for a 40,000 mile tire than a 60,000 mile tire does today… why because in the end, you will be forced to take them out of service and replace them by calendar criteria only…

Chipped tires that report themselves in use beyond the expiration date… anybody :)