Old tires
 

So I have some old tires I bought about 4 years, I was planning to put them on my newest car since it needs new tires, however it turns out they were made back in 1995, and really I don't feel that safe using them on my car.

So the reason I am posting this in the "Around the House" section is well that's exactly what I am intending to do with these tires, insted of paying for my tires to be recycled I want to recycle them by finding a use for them around the house. Currently I am idea searching. I saw the tire house, but I don't have enough tires for that. I don't want to make a flower pot, tire swing, retaining wall, or sand box. Those are the ideas I have seen so far. I kind of wish I had some way to turn them into an energy saving idea or just something useful... Any thoughts are welcome, no matter how crazy! Give me some ideas for these tires!

PS: I also have aluminum rims that are with these tires, that are also junk, I was going to take them to a metal recyclers to see how much money I could get for them, but open to ideas with them too!

IMO, if they haven't started visibly checking they'll probably hold up a year or two, it's weather, humidity and UV that seems to eat them, so if they've been stored in a stable environment they might be in better shape than tires that have been on a car for 3 years.

Where, and how, have the tires been stored?
Indoors out of sunlight, not in close proximity to electric motors or oil? I'd not have any qualms about using them on my car.
List the wheels on the local Craig's. 'reuse' comes before 'recycle'.

Yeah, there's a guy in with a VX that still has the original tires on it... I wish I could remember who it was.

As long as they don't show signs of dry rot & have been stored properly, tires last quite well.

Although Consumer Reports does recommend you check the date code on new tires and not buy them if they are more than about 2 years old.

I'll disagree with the group here, and I'm glad you don't want to use the old tires.

You could always use them like I do, to take up space under your back porch and maybe even a mosquito farm. :)

Besides that, a tire swing is about the only thing I can think of.

-Bob C.

The last set of tires on my Buick were on there for about 12 years before they just plain wore out. I had no problems riding on old tires.

-Jay

When protected from temperature cycling, oxidation, humidity changes, ozone and UV, rubber actually becomes more durable with age. Free flight model aircraft enthusiasts who build rubber powered models, are known to store and age "rubber motors" for 5 years to improve their qualities. I think it's said that a given motor will stand 50-100% more turns if aged. Generally this means putting it in a light-tight air-tight container and leaving it somewhere cool for a few years, various recipes are touted as preservatives, including castor oil and glycerine, which also lubricate it. I presume the advantage is that it seals the surface of the rubber from oxidative attack.

Anyway, I'd go wholly on visible deterioration, in my experience tires "go" from the outside in (unless you've been pumping them with pure ozone) so if they've been stored out of sunlight and even still have the factory coating on, they should still be useable. The one thing you may find is that they have hardened a little and don't offer 100% of the grip they did when new.

I am not sure I trust old tires...
https://www.abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4826897

The tires have been stored for 4 years under a deck, have seen sub zero tempatures, and tempatures as high as 90+ and have had some sun light.

Still looking for ideas.

The guy referred to above with the original tires on his car is R.I.D.E There is a catch though. they have less than 30k on the tires and the car was in an airconditioned storage facility

Low mileage, 27,492 when purchased. Totalled when 2 years old. Insurance company kep it for training adjusters. Air conditioned storage for 13 years, no broken glass, hit in rear. Original tires still good. Interior perfect.

Well if you're not confident that the storage conditions were good, then best not to use them.

I think the message I get from that report reading between the lines is that actually ALL tires are timebombs, you just don't know how short or long the timer has been set by storage conditions, I bet tires stored in an Arizona warehouse where electric forklifts work all day will be dangerous at 2 years old, due to that drying out problem mentioned. Kept in a residential basement for that long where temperature and humidity is relatively stable, they might keep 15 years.

It was interesting that they said not to "put into" use tires more than 6 years old due to elasticity issues. This suggests to me that the tread compound ages a little differently than the sidewall and if they have not taken pressure for 6 years of storage then the treads may separate when put into service, whereas those that have been in service or have been mounted and inflated may not have this issue.

So you could consider them "safer" if you've actually had them mounted and inflated on rims all this while and they are pre-stretched to service pressures.

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.

Build a house (or shed)
https://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/...building-6.jpg

What's the story behind that? Got a link?

What's the mortar they're using between tires?

It's called an Earthship.

Essentially used tires and then a straw/sand/clay mix in between - at least that is what it looks like in between as a lot of times it is just packed mud. VERY efficient but not mainstream and laborious to build. The wife wanted to build one but I have bigger and better things in mind. Not made of tires so I'll keep it off this thread. (hint: concrete geodesic dome)

Here's a link of all different types of natural buildings including the earthship - How stuff works natural buildings

Apparently it's illegal here to use tires for landscaping, planters etc, so I doubt I could get away with a tire and mud igloo either.

Caption for the above pic:

Guy in Green shirt "Hey guys- I need a 235/75 15 to finish out this row"

Other two guys (looking for a 235/75)- "Sorry boss, but all we can find are a few 225/75's"

Green shirt, "Ahhh! It was looking PERFECT up until now- the gap left by a 225/75 will look terrible!- Let's just give up here and start it all over again over there!"

:D