Old tires a serious hazard

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4826897

I posted my concerns here a while ago about the tires I purchased from TireRack:

http://archive.grassrootsmotorsports.com/board/viewtopic.php?id=9554

I think a lot of it depends on where it was stored. A lot of tire shops store their tires outside, allowing them to age. I have 2004 Kumho VictorRacers, that I got from TireRack for closeout price of $50 each. I've done 2 track weekends now and they are working great. TireRack has a huge storage facilities, and are out of the weather. They may even be climate controlled, but I don't know that for sure. Just something to consider. I wouldn't buy old tires from a local tire shop, but then again I don't buy any tires from local shops.

I have not worked at or seen a place that stored tires outside.

I have purchased brand new, dried out tires. But, dammit, they were the last four 13" Eagle STs in the state, and they were gonna be MINE. Note that at the time, they'd been out of production for close to ten years... I understand that they regularly throw out old stock now, so this won't happen anymore.

A lot of small tire shops keep the tires on rolling racks and move them outside during the work day. (You know the places where cheap parents go to get uber cheap tires put on their mini-van, sorry for being offensive, but it makes me sick to see so many stingy parents not willing to pay for the safety of their own children.)

I grew up in the country, and that was pretty much status quo. Not so much in Virginia Beach.

Yikes.

We sell tires but it doesn't pay to actually stock any, when we can get almost anything from NTB at wholesale in a day or less (usually less) and anything else from Tire Rack in well under a week.

I can't imagine keeping tires outside for any length of time. A little rain and your life turns to suckage.

I go to Tirerack's DE warehouse on a near weekly basis. On many a cold day I have been jealous of that automatic door wafting warm air out. And while it ain't like walking into a fridge during the summer, its quite comfortable.

I'd say it's more temperature controlled than my apartment.

As for the age of tires, two years is perfectly reasonable. Even by the guide listed in the video, unless you really think that it will take you 4 years to run through the tread on your tires. By that time the outward cracking of dryrot would be readily apparent.

Funny/sad part of the video, I was working for Sears when they started that "Manager's Special" abomination. It consisted of the company suddenly realizing they had a lot of esoteric special order tires sitting around in their warehouses. So all the stuff that was too old to be taken back by the manufacturers (4 years as the most lenient, but some as little as a year). So they just put the remains on "Manager's Special" to push it out of stock.

Another comment on the obscurity of the DOT#, I'm going to call BS on manufacturer's/retailers purposely putting the DOT on the inside of the rim. Back when I started in the industry back in '01 as a tire tech I was trained to put the DOT outwards unless it interfered with the directional rotation (even then 2 would have the # facing outward), or preference for white lettering/wall options. Not to mention Asymmetrical tires always have the full DOT on the outward sidewall.

Some truth with a lot of sensationalism. Surprise.

On our '04 accord we just changed out the original factory tires after almost 4.5 years and 52k miles of use. Had they been 2 years old (maybe they were?) they would've been over the 6 year number. However, who's to say if the magic number is 2, 5 or 8 years? I'm sure it depends on the tire itself not all tires are alike (compound, manufacturing process etc).

On the other hand I have tires on my truck with lots of tread left but has dry rot since it hardly got used by the previous owner. It's one of those things where I should change them but even with me the amount of use it sees doesn't justify the cost.

A friend of mine in a similar situation with his RV asked me what I thought of his dry rot on the tires (little cracks along the tread edge). I told him to get them changed even though the RV tires are expensive only because unlike my truck his RV goes on the freeways and a lot farther and with his whole family.

I guess you just have to know the risks and make a judgment based on your own situation and keeping other drivers' safety in mind as well.

IMO, I don't drive hard any tire that shows damage. Penny wise, pound foolish.

Now, what you call 'hard' can be open to interpretation.

greg-o

the bfg kdws on the front of the vette were purchased and mounted in 2001 for my camaro, and received 1 mile of use and then were used to fit wheels to the 54, and put away in the barn. in the spring i got em out and had them put on, and they still looked and felt brand new. they've seen 105+ mph and show no signs of trouble.

blaze86vic wrote: A lot of small tire shops keep the tires on rolling racks and move them outside during the work day. (You know the places where cheap parents go to get uber cheap tires put on their mini-van, sorry for being offensive, but it makes me sick to see so many stingy parents not willing to pay for the safety of their own children.)

Oh they're willing to pay, they just don't know where to pay. They see the scary ads on TV that tell them to get a ginormous SUV or minivan because anything smaller will CRUMPLE LIKE PAPER AND KILL YOUR BABY DAMMIT, and then they proceed to put the crappiest tires and brake pads they can find on it while driving it around with 10~20PSI (varies by corner) in the tires with one hand holding the cell phone and the other reaching in the back seat.

I thought it was ironic that they showed footage of tractor trailer re-treads on the side of the road and said "look, the evidence of old tire failure is all around you".

GameboyRMH wrote:

blaze86vic wrote: A lot of small tire shops keep the tires on rolling racks and move them outside during the work day. (You know the places where cheap parents go to get uber cheap tires put on their mini-van, sorry for being offensive, but it makes me sick to see so many stingy parents not willing to pay for the safety of their own children.)

Oh they're willing to pay, they just don't know where to pay. They see the scary ads on TV that tell them to get a ginormous SUV or minivan because anything smaller will CRUMPLE LIKE PAPER AND KILL YOUR BABY DAMMIT, and then they proceed to put the crappiest tires and brake pads they can find on it while driving it around with 10~20PSI (varies by corner) in the tires with one hand holding the cell phone and the other reaching in the back seat.

Teh truth. I have had MANY people come in and want the absolute cheapest thing that rolls, even to the point of wanting undersized tires, just to save a few bux. Some of the noname knockoffs aren't safe when new if used in an over weight application but people will demand them anyway, you should have been there the day I tried my best to talk a guy out of putting undersized no name knockoffs on his G20 Chevy conversion van. Then they want to bitch when the tire fails prematurely.

As noted earlier: a kernel of truth wrapped in sensationalism boiling due to a fire stoked by a greedy lawyer.

Jensenman wrote: As noted earlier: a kernel of truth wrapped in sensationalism boiling due to a fire stoked by a greedy lawyer.

That's just silly and inflammatory. There's certainly more than one greedy lawyer stoking the fire.

Jensenman wrote: Teh truth. I have had MANY people come in and want the absolute cheapest thing that rolls, even to the point of wanting undersized tires, just to save a few bux. Some of the noname knockoffs aren't safe when new if used in an over weight application but people will demand them anyway, you should have been there the day I tried my best to talk a guy out of putting undersized no name knockoffs on his G20 Chevy conversion van. Then they want to bitch when the tire fails prematurely.

Great line I heard a salesman use on a regular basis.

Customer- "I'm getting tires for my daughter's/son's/wife's car, so just give me the cheapest thing."

Salesman-"Wow, you must not like your daughter/son/wife very much."

Customer after a few moments of silent contemplation- "Well, ok, what do you suggest."

Evidently he used this on a regular basis with a fair amount of success.

...anyone see ANY cars in the "garage of death?"

i've had one tire "peel" it's tread... a used firestone... yes i said used... pizza delivery car that never saw speeds over 55mph... it started thumping (driving about 30mph) and suddly saw some tread flying up... tossed my spare on and drove to my used tire guy and bought another used tire from him... at his prices i could justify it... i'd prob bought 10 used tires over the years from him...

i don't buy used anymore though... after I moved i couldn't find a used tire place that was cheap enough to justify buying used...

Not entirely related, but what IS the deal with truck retreads? They just seem deadly to me. Am I wrong about that?

Coming back from Runoffs in Topeka a truck right in front of me threw one. I managed to brake/swerve enough that it barely glanced off the fender instead of slamming dead into me, but it was definitely scary. I guess I'm lucky all I got was a nice ding in the fender, and a whole lotta rubber tire smear I had to clean off.

neckromacr wrote: Great line I heard a salesman use on a regular basis. Customer- "I'm getting tires for my daughter's/son's/wife's car, so just give me the cheapest thing." Salesman-"Wow, you must not like your daughter/son/wife very much." Customer after a few moments of silent contemplation- "Well, ok, what do you suggest." Evidently he used this on a regular basis with a fair amount of success.

I hear this request on a weekly basis at the parts store I work at. Sadly, 95% of the time, it's brake pads.

Tim Baxter wrote: Not entirely related, but what IS the deal with truck retreads? They just seem deadly to me. Am I wrong about that? Coming back from Runoffs in Topeka a truck right in front of me threw one. I managed to brake/swerve enough that it barely glanced off the fender instead of slamming dead into me, but it was definitely scary. I guess I'm lucky all I got was a nice ding in the fender, and a whole lotta rubber tire smear I had to clean off.

I wouldn't trust a retread truck tire any further than I could throw it. I was a Goodyear tire store manager for a year or so, one of my regular customers owns a produce delivery company and we had a retread plant so of course he bought a lot of retreads (not to be confused with regrooved, that's a whole different thing). We had to get the old tire carcasses to send back to the plant to be retreaded again. I saw carcasses that should have been turned into mulch come back a week later with a brand new tread bonded to it. I know they were the same ones because by law you have to mark them with a tracking number, Goodyear calls their system G-TRACS.