Check Your Tires!

[dinanm3atl]

what you guys are saying may be true but, i still feel better knowing that the "new" tire i just bought is not 9yrs old, even if it does not lead to my death. (speaking of which i have a dream to add to the dream thread.)

and to dinan, i can definitely see what you mean by "media scare tactics".

Just as a side note.

Tirerack for my Falken and Fuzions. Purchased in 2009 and both have 2008 date stamps.

[Fast Frankie]

not too worried, the only tires that seem to have problems are all season suv tires...

Makes good news for most people though.

NOTE: I love it when the guy that rolls the explorer says "ohhh shit!!"

[ACMF74]

there are dates on tires......

When i bought some tires from Tire Rack they were about 6 months old.

Here's how to tell how old the tires are:

First locate the letters "DOT" on the sidewall of the tire. Nearby will be the DOT code. DOT codes are 10 to 12 digits long. BTW the digits can be numbers or letters.

The first 2 digits are a code for the manufacturing plant.

The next 2 digits are a code for the tire size.

The next 3 or 4 digits are a code for the type of tire.

The last 3 or 4 digits are the date code. The format is week/week/year/year or week/week/year. These are always numbers.

Starting in the year 2000, the date coding used was 4 digits. That means the largest number you should see for the year is 09. Before 1999 the format was 3 digits. 1999 and 2000 are transition years, so you will find both 3 and 4 digits.

[z31maniac]

not too worried, the only tires that seem to have problems are all season suv tires...

Which is precisely why I think it has more to do with failure to maintain proper tire inflation on a big heavy vehicle then anything else.

[BraveUlysses]

That's funny that "professional" drivers couldn't keep it together with a blown tire.

Wonder how my girlfriend managed to keep her car on the road a few months ago when the tire blew out at 80mph.

Wait, my girlfriend is the next Danica Patrick!

Did you miss the part where they specifically stated that the tread peeling off was significantly worse than a blowout?

The whole point of his post was that you would have no idea that it was old to begin with. People see it as new even though it is X years old.

I think this goes back to when Ford was having a problem with the Firestone tires. People were all scared of the tires and that Firestone made shitty tires. I think that it all came down to under inflation and just poor personal maintenance of tires, not the manufacture or age.

It was bad design and manufacturing at Firestone and bad design and management decisions at Ford (as they directed owners to intentionally run the tires at a lower pressure than ideal, to compensate for poor vehicle design).

[dinanm3atl]

Compensate for 'poor vehicle design'? Can you link to where that was part of the problem? Wife's Explorer has flipped over on any brand of tire. We run them at 30psi all around. Having them at 27 or less like Ford wanted isn't too smart. Load up the car with stuff and you can easily overheat those tires on the highway.

[Restoman]

Ah who the fuck cares.

[91greg325i]

9 year old tires caused that? Wow, who knows how old the tires were on my mustang when I got them... All I know was I looked up the company and it didn't exist anymore. Never blew up on me and I abused them quite a bit. Scare Tactic +1

[mikeedler]

what a bunch of crap! who knows how that tire was driven the last 5 years of its life.- one time in a curb really nicely on a brand new tire will kill it.
here in Germany a tire older than 6 years isn't allowed to pass the bi-annual TUV.

[imsotyerred]

there are dates on tires......

When i bought some tires from Tire Rack they were about 6 months old.

Here's how to tell how old the tires are:

First locate the letters "DOT" on the sidewall of the tire. Nearby will be the DOT code. DOT codes are 10 to 12 digits long. BTW the digits can be numbers or letters.

The first 2 digits are a code for the manufacturing plant.

The next 2 digits are a code for the tire size.

The next 3 or 4 digits are a code for the type of tire.

The last 3 or 4 digits are the date code. The format is week/week/year/year or week/week/year. These are always numbers.

Starting in the year 2000, the date coding used was 4 digits. That means the largest number you should see for the year is 09. Before 1999 the format was 3 digits. 1999 and 2000 are transition years, so you will find both 3 and 4 digits.

told us all that in the video

[JasonC]

It was bad design and manufacturing at Firestone and bad design and management decisions at Ford (as they directed owners to intentionally run the tires at a lower pressure than ideal, to compensate for poor vehicle design).

There was nothing wrong with the Firestone tires. One problem Firestone had was agreeing with Ford to run them with that low of pressure. I had many freinds that worked at that plant in Decatur. It's a sad thing that happened to the workers. Also i and many other people went out and bought and ran the "so called bad tires" on our trucks and SUV's. with no problems what so ever. I aslo would like to know what other brand of tires blew out that the media wasn't reporting.

[ben312]

age has little to do with it. i have a set of tires on my jetta that are over 3 years old and are fine (need changing soon but work fine) and then there are the tires on my e30. they are less then 2 and all have perfect tread, but they are starting to dry rot a little. age is not a huge factor, its how the tires are cared for and where/how they are stored that makes a huge issue.

[e30-RTN]

Thanks for that OP.

Good info!

[mtechnik]

Thread bump!

I recently bought a used Michelin PS2 with the following DOT code: FT2 x 0203 H202 . I can't seem to find any evidence on the net that the Pilot Sport 2's production dates as far back as 2002/2003.. So what's this tire's real production date?

[Fusion]

I currently drive on and track DOT02 Conti tires. They are perfectly fine and have over 3 hours track time on them.
On the contrary, my brother bought Regal(?) tires for his E46, brand new with maybe a year shelf life, and one blew the sidewall when we were on the highway, luckily only doing about 65mph. Nothing happened. I was touching a chick's boobies in the back seat when it blew.