The hysterical fear currently going around about tire aging is, IMO, bullcrap. People believe that tires, regardless of how they are stored, magically turn to dust after 6 years or so. I disagree, and my experience with aged tires has been fine.

That said, even I would be wary of 13 year old tires.

I haven't found much use for tires except the usual things already mentioned. If I had some decent way of cutting them into strips I could probably use the material a few ways; for example, it could be used for bump stops on my trailers. However, I failed with the sawzall, and I failed with the circular saw (as well as fearing for my life).

Lemme start by saying I work in a legit store (farm & fleet... WI, IL, IA only) and deal with tires day in day out. We can't sell anything over 5 years old but anything over 5 years old is still OK to drive on as long as you check them periodically. Unless there is visible damage, drive them bald. Just keep an eye on them and keep them aired up. The most common cause of tire failure is still and always underinflation followed by misalignment and/or lack of rotation.

[anecdote]
I went to use the compact spare that came with my truck... it's a 1987 and the rim had an inch of farm dirt I had to knock off before doing anything with it. it sat up under the bed of the truck for the last 22 years and still had 15 psi in it, I just aired it up to 60 and drove on it for a few days and it was fine and it still has 60 psi 2 months later and it's still in the bed for use as a spare. no cracks and holding air means a-ok in my book.

oh yea, and tire dressing/tire shine is a bunch of BS. I've had to replace several tires with plenty of tread because the sidewall (and only the outer, tire-shined sidewall) is disintegrating. I'm sure there are some mild water-based ones that are decent (really expensive ones dealerships use) but for the most part any tire-shined tire is junk in 1-2 years with regular use. 5 years with occasional use.

Only twice in 35 years have I seen any problem with old tires...and I've run some that were pretty ancient...

Sometimes we would acquire tires when our town had its "Clean Up Days". Look for tires the right size that still had a little tread, take 'em to the gas station to get them mounted ( <$5) and you were good to go. Some times my dad would run some with chunks out of the side....one time, he did have a blow-out.

The other time was when I heard about this date-code stuff. A year ago I needed tires for the Geo...found a Chevy Sprint in a junkyard with what appeared to be a set of brand-new Goodyear "Club" tires. $60 later, I had them on the Geo. Complete with rims. Fine for about a month, then I started feeling vibration. Turns out the tires were bulging. Went shopping for replacements (and found out just how scarce 12" tires are becoming!!) Went to a Goodyear place, the guy there told me about the date codes, and that these tires dated back to the turn of the century, and that they should be discarded just because of that. Had never heard of such a thing before...

Some years ago I was reading an article about a restored 1922 Essex...when the car was restored, the owner installed a set of N.O.S. "Non-Skid" tires (the tread was the words "Non Skid"). The tires were, at that time, some 60 years old...still appeared serviceable, although the car was probably only rarely driven except onto and off of a trailer...

I work at a "national tire store" (you'd all recognize the name of the store) one day a week, just on Saturdays. And yes, I see plenty of tires older than 6 years that are just fine. But, I also see my share of tires that are all cracked and in danger of blowing.

Two weeks ago, a guy came in with a late '80s 300ZX (or something, I forget exactly). He only uses the car in the summer, and had about 25k miles on the tires, and garage-kept. The tires were about 9 years old, and had great tread. However (and you know where I'm going with this), the sidewall was split up the side of the brand name. Usually you see cracking near the bead, and there was cracking there too, but this other cracking was so severe that air was actually leaking. I can't forsee the future, but I bet if the guy tried to drive another 20 miles on these tires they would have blown.

I'm not a big conspiracy guy or anything, but I'll stand by my concern about older tires (even if I'm out-voted).

-Bob C.

I am cheapskate and I used to be a fan of used tires, I've bought/ran at least 10 over the years with no problems but I had some problems with 2 last year so I am sticking with new ones from now on.

One formed a bump on the outside, it was an older goodyear.

The other was an offbrand- YKS or something like that. I got it and its rim at a junkyard. It looked like it must have been new when the car was junked, but about after a week after I had been driving on it, it split the tread and sort of "shed" it while parked in my driveway. It was the weirdest thing. The inner layer of the tire (the part normally covered by tread) was all rounded out but still held held air, while the steel belted tread split along a diagonal line and was literally falling off.

Of course, a tire doesn't have to be old to form a bump...one day about a year or so ago I was driving to the post office, following a guy who was driving a brand-new Nissan Altima. I noticed that the left rear tire had a big bulge on the inside sidewall. I tried, but was unable to get his attention. I continued on to the post office and, lo and behold, there he was. I showed him the bulge, he was horrified to see that on a new tire on a new car. I wonder how often that happens, whether it happens more often on old or new tires, and whether "modern" tires are more susceptible to this type of problem compared to "old" tires.

Make sandals out of the tire treads.

I also seen some African tribe that cuts the tread and makes sandals to sell. I don't remember where I seen it online.

I've still got the original tires on my '97 Escort with less than 25,000 miles on them. The car is garage kept and I keep an eye on the sidewalls and tread. I drove the car on highway trips of about 2,500 miles total with 90-100 degree temperatures from mid June till the end of July with no problems. Unless they start to show signs of dry rot I'll drive them until they are worn out. Before all of the publicity in the past few years about driving on older tires I ran an original spare on a Mazda pick-up that was approximately 15 years old when it was first put on the ground and never had any problems from it. Over the years I have ran several used tires from junk cars that had nearly new tread when the cars were junked and have never had a blow out on any of them. The two rear tires on my '88 Escort are tires that came from a salvaged car. Two tires and wheels for about the price of having 2 new tires balanced.

Resurrecting an old thread.....do this with your old tires.

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