So I bought four new tires online, General Tire RT 43 in April 2021. I noticed that the manufacture date on the tire says 4118, which means October 2018. I guess the warehouse was trying to get rid of older tires, so I lost out on some time.
I took a picture of the current state of the tires after having driven them for over 30,000 miles now. Looks like they are starting to dry rot.
Time to buy new tires?
How long tires hold up depends a lot on environmental conditions and tire composition but typically six years or so is about right for a vehicle stored outside in the elements. Those tires look like they're showing some pretty significant dry rot cracking. I'd replace them, and check date codes on the replacements before buying.
https://www.americastire.com/learn/tire-aging
Sometimes I buy tires online, sometimes from a place like Mavis.
I've never used Mavis but have ordered from tirerack.com and not had a problem with "stale" tires. I think at least for popular sizes they turn over inventory pretty quickly. I expect that would be the case with most if not all of the bigger online tire retailers.
I used to work selling and installing tires and batteries, but it was around 50 years ago. (For those geezers who remember the old Two Guys discount store chain I worked my way through college at one of those.) The mainstay of the tires sold by Two Guys were the house "Diamond" brand which were manufactured by B.F. Goodrich and actually pretty good for the time. Radials were just starting to be a factor but most people were still buying bias and bias-belted tires.
Back in those bad old days we didn't deal too much with dry rot since the bias-ply tires would typically last only 10K-20K miles. Most people would wear them out long before they rotted. Today with much longer tread life it's common to be replacing tires that still have lots of tread left. I do it myself with some older vehicles that might only see 1000 miles per year or less of use. Except for the rot their tires still look practically new when they need to be replaced.
Back then we also got batteries shipped to the store "dry-charged". They were dry and sealed. Part of my job was to break the seal, pour in acid, and charge the batteries when they were sold. Thus the batteries would not deteriorate while sitting on the shelf. Good times!
I don't like to play around with tire safety and just change them out when they get old or when they have visible rot. Quite a few years ago I had a tire that was about 10 years old, but still looked perfectly good with no visible rot, practically explode while crossing an intersection at about 10-15 miles per hour in a little-used vehicle. Lesson learned.
Yeah that shows that a tire can look good, and still be dangerous!
I have only had an older set of tires sent to me once, from tire rack or discount tire, they were like 4 years old. They were nokian Hakkas, I think they were also Russian made so I for sure sent them back. Russian made is not a great indication of quality, so maybe nobody wanted them 🙂
Glad Nokian shut down their plant in Russia.
Yes, "good enough for just driving at low speed around town" ain't necessarily so. Good thing I didn't try to drive the thing on the interstate!
I can see where specialty tires like Hakkas might hang around the warehouse longer than faster sellers. You always have to check that date code before accepting tires! Russian-made would not necessarily inspire confidence either.
We have some similarities in our backgrounds. When radial tires replace bias ply tires I mounted a set of Pirelli thin redwall tires on my TR250 thinking I was all special. They only lasted 9k miles as I drove like an idiot in those days.. Today I try to drive down to about 4/32s. I really don't remember dry rot as being a factor on passenger tires back then at all, just tractor tires and such. I believe your right. Dry rot just wasn't as prevalent years ago, tires typically only lasted 4 years then we would recommend replacing due to age regardless of tread left. lol
The TR250 is cool, the six-cylinder predecessor to the TR6 in the U.S. A friend has a TR6 he bought a few years ago and I help him work on it. (I'd forgotten little British Leyland surprises like jacking up the front of the car to change the oil and, oops, the oil drain is on the front of the oil pan!
The early Firestone "500" radials were pretty bad. It was not unusual for someone to have one of those blow out while driving down the pike back then and they'd limp into the store on a spare tire to replace them with a set of Two Guys' Diamond tires.
Firestone was showing the commercial of the 500 running over all those axe heads and yet we're in a store seeing all the damaged tires from everyday usage. Goodyear's Custom Polysteel was considered as one of the best tire on the market during that time as Michelin's market share was in its infancy. My dad had a two bay garage with an additional front end 'pit' in his independent Goodyear store. That was considered 'big time' in those days. Much like Scotty, I worked for/under him starting at age 13. By the time I was in my late teens I was rather tired of what's now called a 'classic muscle car'. That's literally the reason I bought the Triumph TR250 - it wasn't what I had to work on everyday. Your friend is fortunate to have someone that understands carbs as well as you do. Having someone to help balance those 2 oil filled side draft carbs is not an easy find.
I used to work on those old MG and Triumph sports cars quite a bit back in the day for friends, they were cheap and plentiful, just the thing for college kids - but you had to keep on top of them. I had my friend buy one of those carb balancing tools so we could sync the carbs on his TR6. Still I'd forgotten some stuff over the last half century like that front-mounted oil drain.
:silly:
Sometimes I buy tires online, sometimes from a place like Mavis. I always let them know that I expect pretty new tires. I won't accept tires over about a year old. I understand that they need to get rid of their old stuff, but I don't want it. Especially for the price tires cost now.
The cracks shown in your photo next to the rim indicate tire rubber is starting to break down at that spot. This can happen to any tire. The tire industry recommends you replace tires every 6-10 years, you're at 7 years. Typically one sees signs of dry rot further away from the rim towards the tread because it tends to receive more abuse. When a car sits on tires for an extended period of time (without being driven) the tires will show signs of cracking much sooner where the weight of the car was on the tire.
Was the car parked for an extended period of time? Do the other tires show equal or worse signs of cracking? The questions are relevant because the main concern should be safety. Tires can be replaced in pairs on non-4WD vehicles.
Yeah, the four tires are in about similar condition - dry rot starting to show. I've always maintained proper tire pressure (to a fault), and the wheels have always been properly aligned and balanced. So I've taken care of them best I can. I live in Georgia (west of Atlanta) and the car is parked on the driveway outside. Tread is good but, I think it's time for change. 🙂
Smart decision. Having good tires is essential to having a safe car. It's really just that simple.