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WARNING: DRIVING ON OLD TIRES

dodge1972

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4:42 PM
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Location
Aurora, CO
Just want to share a recent experience. My son was driving my 75 Cordoba with 15 year tires to his wedding for photo session. Tires are 245 60 15 TA tires. Driving 80 miles per hour the complete tire treed came off causing the vehicle to turn toward a wall, after recovering from a near miss on a Denver I-25 in heavy traffic he was able to continue to the nearest exit. Left front fender lower sections are bent, rocker panel trim piece was rippled off. My point is I was planning to purchase new tires, but with winter coming a normally pace the b-body in storage. Take warning "Do Not Trust your ride to old tires". Note photo of tread on right side was the same on the left side.

IMG_4072[1].JPG IMG_4071[1].JPG IMG_4070[1].JPG
 
So glad you and your car are OK!

Very wise words above......
 
He's very lucky, once a tire hits that 6yr mark I start looking. Rubber does degrade !
 
Yeah, 10 year old BFG T/A gave up and took out the quarter on this Challenger.

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I had a similar problem with a Radial T/A earlier this year. I felt a lot of vibration and bumping through the wheel. I got home and the tires looked okay until I looked at the front-passenger one from a different angle and saw a portion of the tread area was just crumbling apart. You could see belts everywhere and that section of the tire was ballooning upwards until it looked like a motorcycle tire. The tire looked fine from the front, but was a disaster on the back.
 
Whew!!!! That was a scary story and some of those tire pictures, well, yea, there scary too!

I have seen this happen on interstates. Crazy site!
 
Glad your son's ok. Tires and Brakes!!! Two most important things on your car.
 
Look at the date code stamped on the sidewall. When I purchased my RR the BFGs had almost 100% tread left, but they were over 5 years old.
Off they came.
Never trust any tire at highways speeds if they are more than 5-6 years old, no matter how good they look.
 
Appreciate everyone comments regarding my posting. The entire car is not worth an accident let alone a set of tires. I seldom drive the Cordoba, I had a bad feeling letting him take the car just to take pictures knowing the tires needed replacement. Happy motoring and drive carefully.
 
I still have the Original spare tire under my 78 D100. Think if I air it up it'll be good?

LOL just kidding. Will make a nice decoration somewhere.
 
The rear tires on my Charger has a '94 date code. Yeah, I'm not driving very far nor fast until I get new ones. Front tires are '16 coded.
 
I bought a set of Cooper Cobra's the dates on the tires were within 6-8 months but one. It was 5 years old. I told the salesman not that one,he had no idea that tires were dated.Discount Tire.
 
I bought my '02 Ram 2500 (5.9L v8, 4x4, manual, long bed) from my aunt in Wyoming with really bad tires. There was no way they would get me home. I made a few calls and found the cheapest new tires in town were $250 a piece. I wasn't too keen on this because I knew I wanted different wheels and tires. My uncle had some unmounted take offs that was in decent shape. Well, decent enough to get home to Georgia. So, I loaded them up to get them mounted in the morning.

The first shop I took, on the nice side of town, refused to mount them because the tires were date coded 10 years old.

Then I took them to a second shop, on the shady part of town. The dude checked the bead and inner tire. Without looking up, he said "$80 cash, no receipt." lol. Whatever. They got me home plus 3k miles before I replaced them with 37" military take offs.

I don't always run sketchy tires, but when I do, I don't carry a spare.
 
here in Phoenix, when you buy tires, I INSIST on seeing the DATE on them before they are installed. Otherwise, they dig stuff out of their warehouse that has been in there two years. You drive for 3 years, and then they won't service your tires because they are "five years old"
Be advised.
 
Date code is when they are manufactured, not when went into service. If a tire is stored in a climate controlled building, and out of UV rays, I can't see where people want to discard 5 or 6 year old tires. A lot of times I've seen new tires that are date coded 2-3 years old before going into service, I wouldn't have an issues running tires with a date code of 10 years or less, but that's just my opinion
 
Another issue, pot holes!
IMHO Pennsylvania has not passed Michigan for having the worst roads in America. At least Michigan didn't pretend to be fixing them. I understand they are better now than a few years back.
Driving in PA is like driving on an obstacle course. On our recent trip to Carlisle, I nailed an unavoidable hole near Clark's Summit and lost a cord on my right front tire. Now, having said that I purchased the tires used in 2010 and although they looked brand new, no doubt they were 10 plus years old.
I took it easy and the TA didn't blow and managed to get us to Carlisle but we did get a nice massage the rest of the way down from the vibration.
But again, that could have happened to a 2 year old tire as well. Either way, check your tires!
 
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