Do any of you you really understand tires?

[bucolic_frolic]

I'm facing new tires. This is hand-wringing. But my mechanic pointed out bald rear inners, cracks. I'm surprised he passed them, I guess it's the low annual mileage. So I took a look. Cracks on the edge, all around where tread meets sidewall.

Now understand these tires are 23 and 22 years old. So I got to digging in codes on the tires. A 4 digit is week and year of manufacture. So my 1201 is 12th week, 2001. Amazing.

But there is another part to that code: LBW 1201 What's the LBW? Not much online about that. I'm thinking refers to a plant.

Then there is another code: DO1L No mention of that either.

These are Cooper Tires, so made in the US at that time most likely. So DO is not a Kumho location.

I'm just wondering.

Also, are all radial tires now steel belted? They've kind of dropped the mention of steel.

Do any of you recall when they started making hockey pucks out of old tires, and the steel began breaking plexiglass? Took them a while to figure it out.

[patphil]

1. The belts in radial tires are made of various materials.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radial_tire

I strongly recommend you replace those tires as soon as possible. Tires that old can fail without warning, possibly resulting in a serious accident.

[bucolic_frolic]

5. Thanks, replacement is underway.

I think the tread is most susceptible to hard stopping. On another car I ripped the tread off one tire when the brake locked up.

I remember radial tires in the 1970s. You could only drive them in one direction, meaning couldn't swap them to the opposite side of the car. Learned that lesson when I did just that causing several treads to "bubble" on the tire, making for bumpy rides. And new tires.

[Best_man23]

13. What you're describing are called "Directional Tires"

The early 1970s radial tires could not be swapped side to side and that was mostly because of the limitations of materials and manufacturing at that time. Radial tires produced in the 1980s and on can be swapped. Directional tires usually have an arrow on the sidewall indicating rotational direction, and you usually see those only on high performance sports cars.

Trade secret, directional tires can be swapped side to side IF you take them off the rims and flip them over (admit that is a bit $$$).

Heat is also a factor that can cause old tires to suddenly fail. I have a 10 year old full size spare on my truck and I need 1 tire going into my state inspection next month. My plan is to buy 2 tires and have them mount the one that relatively good on the spare rim.

[OneBlueDotS-Carolina]

2. Guide I use

https://tractionlife.com/how-to-read-vehicle-tire-sizes-and-markings-like-a-pro/

[Abnredleg]

3. Tires are good for 6-10 years

And need to be replaced at that point regardless of tread wear.

[Old Crank]

11. Here in Europe

When your car is inspected they check tire date.
Over or close to 10 years old you must replace them. Mileage doesn't matter, If they spent all the time in a garage, doesn't matter.

A friend had to get his yearly check done in Lyon. That was two years late becasue of Covid. Damn, my new car is 10 years old... New tires. Plenty of tread becasue he olny drives 3-5 months in France. Keeps car in a dark garage underground. Sorry, new tires or no sticker.

I had the sidewall of an old spare blow out while my Landcruiser sat in the sun. The tire was exposed all the time and finally just blew out without anything touching it.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

4. You're not riding on tires; you're riding on miracles.

The only worse example I know of was when my son bought a fishing boat about a year ago. The tires on the trailer were made in 1978 and they were 'passenger' tires, not trailer tires. Wish he had bought a lottery ticket on the way home.

Please change those things.

[ms liberty]

9. This right here, this is the answer.

22-23 year old tires. Wow. It's the age, the mileage on them doesn't matter.
Think of a very old rubber band, dried out and brittle. You grab it, it breaks like a stick. That's similar to how those tires are. Dry rot.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

10. At that age, even the cord (fibers) inside are rotten

Tires that sit will crack sooner than those in use, due to the nature of synthetic rubber. Each crack exposes the internal structure of the tire to all the elements they're not designed to deal with.

That single molecule in the form of a tire has been fractured and the framework is no longer protected. The edge of every crack acts like one of those bars for tearing off paper -- every flex is trying to break a cord.

Short form: Those things have been may-pops for years.

[RKP5637]

6. Yep, they get susceptible to sidewall blowouts because of all of the flexing over the years

and aging rubber. A sidewall blowout is extremely hard to control especially at high speeds. They need to be changed.

[KS Toronado]

7. LBW is probably Load Bearing Weight

When you add 4 tires LBW together, it needs to be greater than the vehicle weight. Tires that
old, you don't drive a lot do you? Best to stay away from really cheap tires.

[Probatim]

8. r/justrolledintotheshop is a great place for questions like this.

All of the responses to this post are accurate - tires that old will get you and others killed.

On a humorous note, Redditors would say "I paid for the whole tire, I'm using the whole tire." That response is in every tire related post on that sub-thread.

[bucolic_frolic]

12. What do you pay to mount and balance a tire? Where do you go?

Last edited Sun Dec 3, 2023, 01:44 PM - Edit history (1)

I got wild quotes recently. $12 for tires bought online and installed. $30 national retail chain, but they don't want to mount two extra lightly used tires in addition to some new ones. Get this: $42 mount balance disposal at a private shop. and yet another returned my call and wanted - get this - $90 to mount and balance one tire, and that's if there are no problems. I said I already have the tires, I just want them mounted. Yes, that's $90 for mount and balance. One tire.

So after 3 hours of YouTube mechanics I removed the tires myself, washed the rims, touched up a few spots, and am ready to remount new tires. Quite a productive weekend. This video was helpful, this guy muscles off the second bead faster than anyone, still took me about 30 minutes. Now off to the tire store for balancing and two additional new tires.

&t=320s

Hope refilling the air goes well. I have a home method, a tire inflator, with compressed air at the pay-and-pay air machine.

[captain queeg]

14. We used to call "dry rot" though I'm not exactly sure why

I put a couple used tires on my car just before I took a long trip. They looked fine and I didn’t know anything about their history. Did well till about the time we started the return trip. Then I started getting vibration. Soon there was a bubble on the sidewall. I can’t remember if it was one or both of the used tires but at least one of them got a scary bulge. We had to drive 1,000 miles on it. We had no money, we barely had enough gas to get home. As a matter of fact when we stopped get gas the last time we pooled all we had and asked for $2.24 of gas (I don’t remember the real number) but the attendant gave us a few extra gallons for free. We wouldn’t have made it home if he hadn’t. We were 17, gas was in the 30 cent range.

[bucolic_frolic]

16. Dry rot is usually associate with mold in wood

On tires it just eats the structure of the rubber. When I dismounted the pair last week the sidewalls looked fine but when I rolled or flexed the surface from inside the outer surface had universal and widespread tiny crazing, looked like the surface of a cantaloupe. So I'm lucky they didn't fail. Of course they are local only, no sustained high speed highway driving which would put extra stress on them.

[bucolic_frolic]

15. Update, tires installed after I threatened them with mounting myself and balancing elsewhere

So online tire buying and install was not smooth. The tires were delivered UPS a couple weeks ago to the tire dealer. Then i scheduled an online appointment, and the online company confirms and you show up at appointment time.

When I get there, I am told can't do this today, you should have been here at 8am. No that's not what it said. I show him paperwork and text confirm time. No, can you leave it overnight? No. Come back at 5. Are the tires here, I ask. Yes.

So I show up at 5. Can't do. Can you leave it overnight? No. I finally ask if I can take the tires with me because I can mount them myself, cancel the install, and get them balanced locally. Suddenly they were able to install them on the spot. Took almost 2 hours.

And the prices. Some guy was quoted north of $500 for a pair of brake rotors and pads. I did my last set myself, the parts were about $50. Another guy paid his $1300 bill to make way for the $1800 charges that day. Ouch.

The online company ate a lot of fees. I think it's an initial startup, 1/2 price holiday promo. They balanced two extra tires plus the disposal fees on another pair. With the half price online promo I got mount + balance on 2, balance & disposal on 2, new stems on 2 for $24.95!!! I got an emailed receipt this morning, total extra charges $0.00.

This is total victory!!