So this is on a 2009 miata sport. (205/50r16). Can't read the sidewall from the pic. Buying the car. Does anyone know when the advan a11a came out? It doesn't matter all that much, since the tires are done and I'll be getting new ones. I just want to make sure I'm not driving home (30mi) on 11yr old tires.
Will the seller read the date code (or photo the code) for you?
https://www.tirebuyer.com/education/how-to-determine-the-age-of-your-tires
In reply to John Welsh :
I know he would. We are both at work right now though. And I'm picking it up today. It's something I didn't catch until just now. Everywhere I look on google shows those tires are NLA. So probably at least 5yrs old. It's a 2009, but only has 32k on the clock. So I have to do all the "time destroyed" maintenance. Tires, battery, coolant overflow tank (it's greenish). Etc.
seller has owned a year. So not much has been done or driven.
11 year old tires will be fine for a 30 miles drive. Just keep it under 80 and try not to do any track days on the way.
600 mile drive and you might have concern but not 30.
30 miles is fine. I drove 1800 miles home on 14 year old date code tires. with visible dry rot.
I drove my rx7 home on at least 30 year old tires. 11 sounds fine to me.
Hard to tell. They were OE on the 2006 to 2015 (non sport) Miatas from what I can tell.
Dang! You guys got balls. Lol. Good to know I'll be alright. Now, I'm off to retrain my brain to be gentle in a Miata...
If they were OE, they're probably the originals. I'm in the "don't be a whackjob and it's only 30 miles" camp.
The spare tire is just as old but each is probably good for a minimum of 15 miles each. You'll make it home fine.
But, I'll bet the spare is low on air.
I ran a king of the road race on a set of 11 year old A032's once.
They won't spontaneously explode. They will vibrate, then shake for a while, the explode if you keep your head firmly lodged up your own bunghole.
KyAllroad (Jeremy) said:11 year old tires will be fine for a 30 miles drive. Just keep it under 80 and try not to do any track days on the way.
600 mile drive and you might have concern but not 30.
I towed my '81 home on 15 year old tires and up until recently drove on 20 year old tires on the '84 RX-7.
I didn't drive in the rain, though.
The thing you have to pay attention to is rubber cracking. If the rubber is cracked deeply enough that the cords are visible in the cracks, that is unsafe. Then the carcass of the tire is exposed to the elements and this is why old tires fail. This generally happens on RVs that are parked in direct sunlight without tire covers. Car parked inside garage? Not a problem. No deep cracks? Not a problem.
I'm not saying they won't grip like Big Wheel tires, but you won't have a blowout.
John Welsh said:The spare tire is just as old but each is probably good for a minimum of 15 miles each. You'll make it home fine.
But, I'll bet the spare is low on air.
And that is all a spare needs to do - a few miles to a garage.
I still have the original 1971 Dunlop under my Jensen Interceptor - zero miles but coming on 50 years, with no cracking or checking. Should probably replace it.....
Ran my MGA coupe to the body shop on tires I'd used to hold it off the ground from the 1970s - old Michelin ZX. No checking on those, but no stiction either - squirrely as all heck!
I did a whole season of autox and a few track days on a set of 18 year old A008's. They worked pretty well and I think the guy I sold the wheels to, used them too
Just drive it. 30 miles will hardly get the tires warm.
I drove my e30 home about 100 miles on two rear tires that were probably 20 years old and two totally bald fronts that I borrowed from someone. I had a ton of vibrations over 45mph. But that was because the driveshaft was only attached with two bolts, and loosely at that (I later discovered). This was all on rural byways though. Wouldn't have gone near an actual highway :)
The tires were fine though.
Keep speed reasonable, make sure there are no obvious signs of impending failure and you'll probably be fine. If they're not cracked to death and don't have weird vibrations, they probably won't come apart at reasonable speed. Just don't expect much grip.
I'm in the "it'll be fine for 30 miles" camp, though I certainly have more concern about old tires than some folks here.
After seeing a spare blow out catastrophically on a van's spare mount (looked like the Kool Aid Guy had made an exit through the tread), I have doubts about how much notice a tire has to give before quitting its job. Knurled's observation about sun exposure is pertinent, I'm sure, though I don't recall it looking that bad (but I have no doubts it was aged out because spare tire on band van).
I once put a new battery and fresh gas in a 28yrold car with 132k miles that had been sitting unmoved in a parking lot for over a year on 3x 11yrold tires and 1x 28yrold spare donut. Drove it 400 miles home on the highway. Kept speed to 60 or so most the way. Have put another 1.5yrs and 3k miles, including sometimes towing a small trailer on those 3 tires and a used full-size tire. Shakes a little at higher speeds but is otherwise ok.
I autocrossed my Z32 on ~15 year old tires. Big wheel tires is accurate.
In 2017 I flat-towed my Challenge car from Texas to Florida and back on 4 space saver spares (well, 5 since one blew on the way back and i put a different one on) from 5lug K-cars (so the tires were from ~86-95) and doing well over the 50-55mph 'max speed' they recommend for over 1000 miles each way. I DID THAT, and I still feel more cautious about old tires than a lot of what I'm seeing in this thread. 
Having said that, I would just drive cautiously and pay attention.
Vigo said:In 2017 I flat-towed my Challenge car from Texas to Florida and back on 4 space saver spares (well, 5 since one blew on the way back and i put a different one on) from 5lug K-cars (so the tires were from ~86-95) and doing well over the 50-55mph 'max speed' they recommend for over 1000 miles each way. I DID THAT, and I still feel more cautious about old tires than a lot of what I'm seeing in this thread.
Having said that, I would just drive cautiously and pay attention.
I'm all but convinced that the space saver spares only say "max 50mph" because the handling will be asymmetrically funny at best, and might screw up a differential at worst.
I am the guy who throws away winter tires when they are two years old because I'm too cheap to throw them away after one year. But there's a difference between wanting maximum return for the effort of bothering to run winter tires, and worrying about a short trip on old hoops.
I also had aged out, heavily cracked tires on my old '85 RX-7 that I took off of a '73 2002 that we installed new tires on because the old ones were aged out and heavily cracked. As it turns out, they were in fact scary 
I remember coming home from an autocross where I massively overdrove those Death Valley cracked, ancient, 5000 treadwear no name all season 185/70-13s, and it was raining, and I could not maintain 35mph on a gentle winding road without ruddering around in lurid four wheel drifts. To paraphrase a C&D article about a car with E36 M3ty tires, it understeered and oversteered at the same time.
All the same, i also drove that car on those tires for many tens of thousands of miles and the carcasses were fine. The tires hardly wore at all, either... probably wore the asphalt more than the tires
The tires that came with my Ramcharger were a bit dry rotted, but no major cracks or obvious damage. They lasted the month and a half I needed them to before I tossed new ones on it. That was in Sep-Oct of '19; they were a no name brand, and the tire size was in standard measurement, not metric...
I drove for a few weeks on retreaded snow tires that I've owned for 15 years.
Those tires don't look heavily cracked, I'd say they are ok for a short trip
Y'all are wusses 
I drove 1400 miles on a fly-n-drive 73 Impala with nylon bias ply tires from 1978.
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