Tire life in years

[Brian M.]

Re: Tire life in years

I wouldn't put Firestones on my bicycle. JMHO

[Stephen L.]

Re: Tire life in years

I had a radial tire (spare never on the ground) blow out in the trunk of my 72 Monte Carlo. What a surprise when I opened the trunk to find a large piece of the tire laying across the trunk I replaced the full set.

[Dick W.]

Re: Tire life in years

The problem with the last Firestone recall was not the tire so much as it was F**ds rediculous tire pressure, 26# I believe. All the photos I have seen of those tires exibited characteristics that I would expect to see from a tire that had been run low of air. I have run probably 10 sets of Firestones since that recall. Some of the cheapest tire cost per mile that I have ever had.

[Brian M.]

Re: Tire life in years

I had a new set of Firestones on my 67, 2 of them developed bulges in the sidewall, Firestone would do nothing about it. Never again.

[Rich W.]

Re: Tire life in years

Paul I bought the car with the tires that are on it now..I have pictures of the car when the PO bought it..the guy he bought it from put the tires on it..it was driven only 5k since the tires were put on in 00..they look fine..I did take them off and checked inside for anything that may be bad..run flat or inner liner cracked up..all looked fine..I do drive this car..not sure what defines fast but it does go over 70mph on occasion..so I have been looking at some nice repos..hopefully Goodyear..

[Paul J.]

Re: Tire life in years

But your 37 y/o tires are probably not radials. They are way more prone to failure. I have a pickup here that one of the tires was made before the standard date coding, sometime in the '60's and it looks fine. Would I drive it out on the highway, not on your life

You're exactly right. I've had old radials blow when I was walking past the car. They were rollers and lived a hard life before that, but I have never seen anything like that with biased ply. The 37 year old Goodyear Polyglass tires that I have are used for rollers.

[Jim T.]

Re: Tire life in years

I am not recommending doing what I did at all. However on March 17,1984 I bought 4 new Goodyear Eagle GT 255-60-15's for my 1970 Corvette. Really liked the look of these tires. Cost of tires was $114.59 apiece.
I replaced these tires on June 9,2010 after accumulating 49,233 miles. Worn down to the tread wear indicators. The sidewalls looked really good with no cracking and white lettering was still pretty good.

Replacement tires came from Tire Rack and are Goodyear Eagle GT II 255-60-15's. The tires were actually cheaper in 2010 than they were in 1984. Tire cost was $114.00, but the shipping was $56.20

The new tires with their softer rubber really improved the ride.

[Duke W.]

Re: Tire life in years

Worn tires will always create ride harshness due to less thread depth. It's something that happens over time so slowly you don't notice it.

New tires with full tread depth of fresh non-hardened rubber will damp out much of the high frequency ride harshness you felt with the old, thin, tires. It has nothing to do with brand or model. It's just the nature of old, worn versus new tires and has nothing to do with safety - just comfort.

Duke

[Tom R.]

Re: Tire life in years

In 2004 I did a frame up restoration on my 60' and replaced the original FireStone tires with Diamondback Radials. Now seven years and 4500 miles later one of the white walls has seperated. I called Diamondback and was told to replace all four tires because of their age. Is 6-7 years the shelf life of radials?

The answer is Yes! European tire manufacturers have used this as guide for nearly a decade. US manufacturers have been slow to adopt this guidance but its good practice.

Corvette Tire Safety: http://www.hunt4cleanair.net/Article...tiresafety.pdf

[Richard S.]

Re: Tire life in years

A few weeks after I had my Diamondback whitewalls installed by a local "chain" tire company I returned to have an unrelated tire repaired. To my suprise my original 4 tires, with a born on date in 2002, are now on sale in the "like new" tire section. I just thought it odd that a chain store would take on the liability of selling 9 year old tires.

[Phil D.]

Re: Tire life in years

Doesn't surprise me. Just wander into the poorer side of the big city and you'll find dozens of "used" tire stores. I wonder where they get their inventory? They probably came off a low mileage car after some slick salesman at a stealership or tire store in the suburbs talked someone into buying a new set because their tires were getting old. Oh, and I'm sure they charged $3 each tire disposal fee too.

[Bruce B.]

Re: Tire life in years

I had a set of old radials on my 57 during restoration.
One day I opened the garage door and went about my work.
Within an hour I heard an explosion.
It turned out that the sun was shining on one of the tires and the heat and added pressure caused the tire to blow.
Old tires are not good.