I believe that the tyres ( English spelling ) on my 78 Pace Car are original having travelled only 14k documented miles which are Goodyear Eagle GTs - 255/60/15. However, every 78 Pace Car that I have ever seen have Goodyear GT Radials fitted which makes me wonder if in fact my tyres are original. Any help in clarifying this query would be greatly appreciated. I received my first copy of the Corvette Restorer a few weeks ago..... fantastic reading. We had our National Corvette Convention here in Auckland last weekend at the Americas Cup Village with 65 Corvettes participating in what was a great summer event .... sorry to see America One pipped at the post by Prada. Its now up to the KIWIs to retain the Americas Cup and are now one up in the best of nine races......hope some of you have been able to follow the racing. All the best from the City of Sails Ashley Webb Auckland. NZ
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Re: 78 Tyres
Ashley: Standard tires on the 78 Limited Edition Pace Car were P255/60R15 tires, with raised white outlined letters denoting "GOODYEAR" and "GT RADIAL". The Eagel GT's came into production a little later. I would believe the tires on your 78 Pace Car are service replacements. Vito
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Check the DOT markings
Check the DOT compliance markings on your tyres, which start with "DOT" followed by a group of letters and a three digit number. The number is the chronological week and year the tyres were manufactured. For exmample "168" would be the sixteenth week of the year. Unfortunately, the year could be 1978, 1988, or 1998. Your OEM tyres were probably marked as this practice began in the epoch your car was built, so if the tyres have a "7" or "8" year code, they might be original, but if the year code is other than these two, they are probably replacements. Also, OEM tyres would likely have identical codes, but replacement tires usually are different, but within several weeks of each other.
DukeComment
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Re: 78 Tyres
Thank you for your responses, the only combination of numbers and letters is 252977-GW 21MN. Any ideas? Ashley Webb.Comment
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Hmmmm...
Sounds like all you have is maybe a GM TPC (Tire Performance Criteria) specification. If there are no DOT compliance markings, then I'd be willing to bet that those are the original tyres!
DukeComment
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Amendment to Hmmmm...
Did you thoroughly check BOTH sidewalls for DOT markings. On non-directional tyres they are usually on the "back" side. I checked the OEM spare on my 1976 Cosworth Vega (December 1975 build) and it has the DOT compliance markings with a date code of "345", but, for what it's worth has no TPC Spec number (?). Since this was such a low volume model, GM may have waived the TPC spec requirement. In any event, I don't have a ready example of a typical TPC spec number, so I'm not sure if the data you quoted is the TPC spec, but I'm sure your tires must have DOT markings unless they are much older than the car, which is unlikely.
DukeComment
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My turn to Hmmmm...
(1) Unless the tyres are off-shore (US) reproductions never intended
for import to the States, they WILL have DOT source code declaration
emboss (by law). So, look harder, longer.... Requirement went into
effect 1 Jan 1968 and except for a few 'work in progress' tyres (saw
one once with paper stick on declaration label) shipments, you can
definitely expect the code sequence to be embossed by '78....
(2) As far as all tyres/wheels on a given car having the SAME date
sequence, my experience negates this. What I've seen is 'close'
but individual sets (tyres and wheels) appeared pulled from bins
mixed and varied by, perhaps, a month in terms of individual date
code spectrum....Comment
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