Tires

HalcyonDays

HalcyonDays

Senior Member
I have the opportunity to purchase some used tires. Two of the tires have never seen the road, they were used as spares. Four tires saw very minimal use. Here is the question, age... The tire code on the tires is 377. After researching the tire code I discovered that the code was increased from three digits to four digits starting in the year 2000. This means these tires were manufactured before 2000. The first two numbers in the code indicate the week in the year the tires were manufactured in this case the 37 week. The last number indicates the year in the decade the tires were manufactured "7" meaning 1997, 1987, 1977 1967. Often there is a triangle after the code if the tires were manufactured in the 1990's, no triangle on these tires. So best case these tires are twenty years old, more likely they are more than thirty years old.

Should I purchase these tires? If so what is a fair price for six tires?
 
Yes you should purchase them if you just need something to roll your car around the garage. No you should not purchase them if you intend to drive on the street. Call a few local tire shops, some shops won't even work on tires that old and you will end up mounting them on rims yourself (which is what I do anyway, can't trust the shops). You should add your general location to your profile, someone may have 4 they would give you if you pick them up.

Charlie Stephens
 
I would agree with Charlie. I recently replaced my tires while the wheels were off for powder coating. The tires were aged but had low mileage and looked ok. After debating with myself for a while, I decided it was the right thing to do.
 
I just went thru this on our Mach 1 Mustang. BF Goodrich Radial TA's, 20 years old, very low miles always stored indoors. Tires looked like new. Why not keep running them, just another year maybe two?

Then I heard about a guy in a local car club near us, who had a tire blow out on his '70 Olds Cutlass Convertible running down the Interstate at 70 MPH. On a set of ten year old Goodyear Eagles. He's OK but his #1 condition Cutlass convt. ain't. It did four thousand dollars worth of damage.

I vote with Charlie on this one:eek: Not worth trying to save a few bucks get new tires if you plan on driving the car.
 
Standard model A tires arent all that expensive really when you compare them to modern tires that you would buy.
 
The risk against the savings is hardly worth it.
Dept of Transportation has a lot to say about ten year old tires on its web site.
 
When I bought my pickup it had "NOS" tires. They were 25 years old, but only had 1100 miles on them. I played around using them and some other used tires for several years. Finally bit the bullet and bought a set of new radials. Should have done that in the beginning and saved me a lot of time and money.
 
Last summer I was driving my daughters 36 Chev PU in eastern Washington when there was an explosion that happened at about 70 MPH. When I got the truck stopped I thought something happened to the trailer that I was towing.

What happened is that a steel belt let go. When I got the truck stopped, there was about a 14 inch chunk of steel belted radial flapping and hitting the fender. I ended up driving it with this chunk flapping for about 2 miles at about 5 MPH on the shoulder to a rest stop. At the rest stop another street rodder and we're looking at it when another guy said that he had a hack saw; which was used to saw the chunk of tread off of the tire. With that piece gone I was able to drive the truck to our destination. I'm still amazed that the tire still had air in it and hadn't blown.

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The tires on the truck had been on there for about 20 years, but had good tread on them; which isn't a good indicator anymore. After I got to the campgrounds where we were going to camp, I took the tire off and went looking for another tire. I replaced both fronts and when the took the right tire off it had a bulge in it and could have gone at anytime too. Both of the tires were B.F. Goodrich Radial TA's.
 

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Thank you all for the advice. You said what I had been thinking. This does bring up an interesting topic, a lot of older restorations will have these older tires on them. They are bias ply not radial, but thirty years is thirty years. In this case the tires were for a 1933 Chevrolet and 18". These are harder to come buy, especially in the 5.25/5.5 18 size. Lucas Tire still makes them but they do not look the same for some reason. Oh well safety first. Thanks again

PS: I do own Model A's
 
Just another thought on tires. If you are running radials does the tread last so long that they don't wear out before there time is up. If you only drive your car 1000 miles a year you could maybe have them 20 years before the tread wears out.
 
If old tires aren't showing cracks when they are aired up, I run them, but might carry an extra spare on a long trip.

I have a set of 5 brand new Goodyear white walls that I've been storing for almost 20 years. They will go on my 31 Town Sedan when I start driving it.
 
"On the other side I have NOS w/w on my Tudor. Made in New Zealand. How old is that?"

I have the same NZ tires on my '28 Tudor. They were put on the car in 1985. They still have plenty of tread and no cracks. I seldom go over 35 mph.
 
I have to admit I'm guilty of running old rubber on the Model A. Got a set of thirty year old Bedford (same as Sears and Garfield ugly zig-zag tread pattern) tires and they seem to be in super shape. No cracks, still pliable. Rayon tires. Don't drive out of town just put around. Good tubes very seldom put air in these tires maybe once a year to top them off.

No 70 MPH on the Interstate in that car for me. Keep thinking I'll get some new Goodyears probably will in the next year or so................
 
I'm driving on old Montgomery Wards "Riverside" Tires.
From what I've read on here they stopped production in 1977.
My truck has been in storage since 1981 until I purchased it in August 20 2015.
They are in decent shape tread wise and very little cracks. I did buy new Firestone's to put on once I get the wheels powder coated. The Tires made today don't age well at all. I think the older Rubber compounds had a Ultra Violet Ray Inhibitor that maybe isn't being used in today's tires.
 
I'm dealing with the same issue on my Corvette that I just bought, the tires on the car have less than 2000 miles on them but are 12 years old, just ordered 4 new Michelins almost $1400 installed, felt it was better to spend the money then lose a tire at 80 mph.
 
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