Safety of old tires
 

It's hard to search for old threads on tire age so I'll start a new one.

Was looking at the date codes of the tires on my '41 purchased just 18 months ago. They're over 20 years old. They've obviously been indoors over 99% of the time and have almost zero wear. Nevertheless, rubber breaks down over time.

I've heard that even perfectly good looking tires over 10 years old can be unsafe. A couple of years ago I sent some 10 year old Michelin's to the dump just because I didn't want to stick someone with something that was potentially lethal. Sure, they might look good but, well, I don't know......don't want to put someone's life at risk for any price.

Anyway, I think I'm going to send my 20+ year-old tires to the dump and buy some cheater radials that look like original pie-crust tires. I need every safety advantage I can muster driving an 82 year old car on Interstate 5.

Welcome your thoughts.

Re: Safety of old tires
 

Age has become a big deal. The composition of what’s in the rubber has obviously changed. I don’t remember tires going “south” at the rapid rate they do these days…..

Re: Safety of old tires
 

You could offer your old tires to someone that needs rollers or parade tires and keep them out of the landfill. I use tires till they won't hold air any longer. A new tire can blow out too.

Re: Safety of old tires
 

Please consider selling the tires as rollers for someone that has a long term project or someone trying different sizes . Suggest a written sales agreement stating your concerns.
Just something that could help another enthusiast.

Re: Safety of old tires
 

as GG has said.

Ive bought several sets of 5 for 100. on cl.

I rarely drive the cars, local and they would be fine in a parade or for just showing the car off.

Re: Safety of old tires
 

https://www.productliabilityadvocate...hits-the-road/

Look like Mass proposed this in 2014, someone who lives in that state will have to comment.

Re: Safety of old tires
 

Brad, not to highjack the thread but the DOT markings on the 46 Fordor I just started on are DOT E4 062. Maybe 1962?. Not showing signs of cracking but at least new tubes are probably a good idea until I'm ready for new ones. When in doubt, replace!

Re: Safety of old tires
 

Also, seem to recall you drive your coupe quite a bit, but don't remember if you're venturing out on the freeways down there in So Cal. Have always thought of tires as relatively cheap insurance!!

Re: Safety of old tires
 

‘In My Humble Opinion’ I have 4 collectible Rides, 3 that get less than 300-500 miles per yr! On the one I run 1500-3000 miles a year I’m more cautious as I push it hard & fast occasionally but even that one like the others I watch for signs more than age! All are garaged & out of extreme temp change as the garage is under a heated area. I like most of u probably have run tires when younger that were Probly 10 yrs used when I bought. Even then used the same rational. Check frequently when signs dictated I’d dump them & get a fresher set! Truthfully only a couple times in 57 yrs & have never had an issue. The way a car is used ie lotsa mile or few, garaged or not, lotsa sun or shade etc! Also what the tires look like, ie chalkiness, cracks, flexibility, is it outside mostly in shade or sun etc! If I changed mine based on date code I’d have 2 cars less over 57 yrs as the $s woulda gone to tires! Again all this is ‘In My Humble Opinion’, the Gov & Tire makers are in bed together & a lot of what we read is based on that, ‘In My Humble Opinion’! :eek:

Re: Safety of old tires
 

Never made it. Annual inspections do not look at tire codes.

Re: Safety of old tires
 

Have to ask, is the cost of a set of tires worth an injury at best let alone a flat or blowout ripping the fender off? Tires usually disenegrate on the inside but can look good on the outside. I had two 5 year old tires come apart last year on my pickup with a car on the trailer. ..............

Re: Safety of old tires
 

I thought safe old tires was an oxymoron.

Re: Safety of old tires
 

I believe "062" means the sixth week of 1992. Or 1982. (or 1972?) Yeah, one digit for the year doesn't tell you which decade! After 2000, manufactures were required to use two digits for the year.

Re: Safety of old tires
 

Jay, they were on the car when I bought it in 1991 and I think had been for awhile. I'm guessing the 1982. Mystery solved I think. Found a repair order from 1/15/1984 for 4 tires and tubes installed for $220 plus mounting and balancing. Work was done in Oblong, Illinois.

Re: Safety of old tires
 

Ya know, I never quite bought into "replace every five years or so"...
UNTIL I spoke with a friend of mine that owns the Local Merlin Muffler shop. Like me, he didn't buy into that claim either.
Not until he started finding beautiful tires (on the outside) and separating plies on the inside.
I've got a number of sports cars that each get driven maybe 1500 miles a year. Replaced every set just last year. Like others have stated... not worth the risk.

Re: Safety of old tires
 

The culprit is oxygen in the air. Oxygen reacts with the rubber compounds and "oxidizes" them over time reducing the internal adhesion and structure of the rubber. Normal air does this on the outside of the tire and on the inside. This is why some tire shops fill new tires with relatively pure dry nitrogen gas. Air is 76% nitrogen and 13% oxygen and the remainder is other gases.

I normally get new tires every 5-7 years on my modern daily driver cars so the breakdown of the rubber isn't an issue. One of our club members had not one, but two blowouts 5 miles apart in his '49 Woodie, in traffic, on I-95 last summer. Thankfully no injuries to anyone or the Woodie. He was able to get 4 new tires and continue the journey. On inspection, the tires looked great on the outside, but inside the ones that didn't blow out were all checked and delaminating. The tires were 10 years old.

Like others have said, a set of tires might cost a bit, but far less than the cost of an accident and injury.

I have a set of rollers on my truck which must be at least 60 years old. They hold air just fine but will never go any further on my truck than my driveway.

Re: Safety of old tires
 

I'm on the reckless, endangering mine and others life side but, I've had a lot of experience with NOS tires, w/o any failures.

BUT, I'm not encouraging anyone doing as I do!!!

98% of tire failure come from under inflation and defectively made tires.

I'm a machinist and have worked in rubber molds. One of my employers from '74, worked for Firestone, in the '60's. Firestone have a lot of defective tires, until Bridgestone took them over. I had a new set of Pet Boys branded tire, in '63 and 3 of the 4 blew out at fwy speeds. I asked him about that and he told me that Firestone made those tires. Up until foreign made tires, came on the sceen, there were only 3 tire manufacturers in the US. Firestone, Goodyear and BF Goodrich. All other brands were made by them.

Before my step father died, he put a new set of premium Goodyear tires on his GMC van. I got the van after he died, the tires were 2 years old. I had 2 of those blow out at fwy speeds (one down town Sac @ 4pm (front), in the inside lane). I thought it might have been under inflation that caused it but, a few months later after making sure all the tires were at 32 lb, I had a rear blow out!!!

I recently bought a pair of race tires and was taking to the long standing tire guy and brought that up and he said Goodyear had defective tire issues in the early 2000's, when those tires were new.

Compression rubber molds are (the way tires are made) are vulcanized together with heat. And after that if the rubber gets to hot, it looses it strength and it's bonding ability to hold the carcass the materials, that make it strong (Nylon, Rayon, Steel) together, then at what ever temp that is (maybe 300+ deg) it suddenly comes apart.

Running a tire @ low pressure, allows the carcass to flex and the flexing creates heat. That heat is what causes the tire to blow out.

Again, don't do as I do, I'm just telling you why tires fail.

Re: Safety of old tires
 

My thinking exactly ! I’ve seen a couple 39-40 Fords that had a blowout on the left rear and it took out the gas filler pipe then spilled gas which ignited from the sparks and burned the car to the ground. I change my no later than five years no matter how good they look on the outside.

Re: Safety of old tires
 

That's settled then. No 20+ year old tires on the interstate for me.

Read through a lot of threads here and on the H.A.M.B. and already decided on Diamondback Auburn radial blackwalls: 600R16, the original size.

Consensus is they need radial tubes. Oddly Diamondback doesn't seem to sell tubes. The only ones I've found so far are Coker's from Speedway. Any recommendations?

Re: Safety of old tires
 

You sure DiamondBack doesn't sell tubes? Maybe just not shown on their web site catalog? When I bought their expensive Auburn tires six years ago, the order-taker added radial tubes for only $10 per tube. No doubt would be more now.

Re: Safety of old tires
 

Have you tried Tractor Supply ?

Re: Safety of old tires
 

I should call. thanks!

Re: Safety of old tires
 

I ordered a pair of 7.50 x 17 inner tubes for my tonner from Morrow Tire which has 100% positive feedback on ebay. The tubes were Firestone and seemed to be of high quality with the correct brass stems.. I installed one yesterday and another today. I then ordered two more since I have two tonners and a utility trailer with same wheels and that's a hard to find size.

https://www.ebay.com/str/morrowtire

Re: Safety of old tires
 

Instead of fitting radial tubes, I run tractor tubes in my radials...they are of heavier construction, and the valve stems are correctly sized to suit old Ford rims. Radial tubes have regular 'skinny' valve stems which necessitate the fitting of plastic grommets into the hole in rim to take up the difference

Re: Safety of old tires
 

Several years ago, I decided to put new tires on my non-stock 1931 Ford roadster after discovering cracks in the outer sidewall of 1 tire. I stepped up, and paid the price for new tires. After my old tires were removed, I saw many cracks on the inside walls of the tires including one crack that ran all around the inside wall of the tire. I was very thankful that I replaced my tires as the original tires were white-walled tires about 20 plus years old. I sold the set of 4 old tires for $ 100.00 to a guy that wanted some tires to just roll his car around.

Re: Safety of old tires
 

I've been running tubeless radials on my 35 with original wheels for about 10 yrs, no problems...

Re: Safety of old tires
 

Brian, I will have to replace the whitewall tyres on the 1947 sedan coupe they have been on there 50 years what would be the best tyre to replace them in N.Z.

Re: Safety of old tires
 

I know a guy that is running Ford branded tires. He got the set for $200.The tires do have new inner tubes.



When was the last time Ford installed Ford Branded tires?


Can't talk him out of using these tires because he only runs in town (35 mph or less).


Any thoughts?

Re: Safety of old tires
 

...in my opinion, new tires that fail before the life span of the tire(as established by the manufacturer of the tire, 6 years maybe) should be eligeable for a recall notice simliar to a vehicle recall. Especially when the manufacturer knows there is a manufacturing defect. This would insure safety and customer good will.

Re: Safety of old tires
 

If you go to my MISC folder, second page I have pictures of a friend's 40 coupe that burned due to a very old bias ply Left Rear tire (all were old) that blew out, took out the filler neck, and sparks from the rim set it blazing. Had just filled the tank and was on a tour. Luckily all occupants got out. The 4 pictures show what old tires can do.

Re: Safety of old tires
 

Glad to know all the occupants got out. Regardless of insurance or monetary concerns, don't want to go there. I work with probabilities a lot. There's a pair that's often used in analyzing these occurrences. Probability and consequence. It may be low probability but it is high consequence. And the consequences could have been much worse. If they'd been going 70mph and lost control of the car well....

Re: Safety of old tires
 

deuce_roadster said I could post his images. They're food for thought about running old tires.



https://www.fordbarn.com/forum/pictu...ictureid=41912https://www.fordbarn.com/forum/pictu...ictureid=41913https://www.fordbarn.com/forum/pictu...ictureid=41914https://www.fordbarn.com/forum/pictu...ictureid=41915

Re: Safety of old tires
 

What a shame on that '40 Coupe.

A buddy at the local front end shop reminded me a while back, that tires have a seven year shelf life, generally. So, just because you bought 'new' tires if they have been sitting somewhere for 3-4 years they are half way to being old.

You may want to verify that those new tires are indeed, new.

Re: Safety of old tires
 

Arrgh! Bought a new set of five new Diamondback Auburn radials with radial tubes also from Diamondback and had them installed. Had a flat on the way home from the shop with less than five miles on the tires. Hope I didn't ruin it. Used the plastic spacers to accommodate the smaller valve stem in the larger wheel hole. Naturally I suspect faulty installation but I haven't taken the time to inspect yet. Changed the tire, drove the rest of the way home, put the car in the garage and called it quits for the day.


Ironically, I removed my jack and tools to make room for the tires on the way to the shop so had to call a friend to shuttle me back home to get my jack and tools.

Re: Safety of old tires
 

I have run a lot of used tires over the years, but this thread has gotten my attention. On Tuesday the UPS truck delivered 4 new tires for my 4x4 roadster pickup. I thought the tires I bought used 20 years ago looked fine. No cracks, no chalky or any bad signs . At least not until I dismounted them to install the new tires. Hopefully Pete will blow up (no pun intended) the tread photo to show all the hidden cracks. We are hoping to head over Washington Pass this summer for a trip to Eastern Washington in this jalopy, which was my wife's idea. Great peace of mind and who doesn't like being knee deep in rubber?

Re: Safety of old tires
 

Western Oregon- all used tires go to Molalla Tire Disposal and into the 'GRINDER'. They'll take your old tires for $2 @. Their trucks pickup old tires from shops all over the Pacific NW. Newc

Re: Safety of old tires
 

Pulled the flat tire out of the trunk and figured it out in about 30 seconds. Diamondback uses wood spacers to hold the beads spread apart on the tires. The tire shop let one fall into the tire and then installed the inner tube right over it. I can hear it rolling around in there. No wonder the tube burst after just a few miles.

Re: Safety of old tires
 

Geez, SoCal! That's a new one on me. I hope the installer gets yelled at for that bonehead move. On tube tires I sneak my wife's vacuum out of the house to suck up any grit before the tube goes in. On my fiirst freeway trip in the woodie I got a flat after I reached my destination. Tire shop said it was abrasion from grit against the tube. But a block of wood?

Re: Safety of old tires
 

They also took some old widow maker truck wheels that I had.

Re: Safety of old tires
 

I have had 2 tires on different cars of mine blow sitting in my garage last year. Cars had not been driven for months. Yes tires were 15 + years old. Both tires blew the tread right off the casing in one area. Glad I wasn't on the highway.
b
Bob