Does anyone know of a brand of tires that don't develop cracks in the sidewalls before you even wear the tread out anymore?! I've tried what I thought was the top of the line Michelins and replaced them with Mastercraft. They all seem to develop cracks within two years. I'm guessing this is engineered failure so they will breakdown and decompose in the environment sooner or a marketing strategy to sell more tires? The odd thing is, I had a flat the other day on my 79 F100. My spare tire was given to me by a friend before he got married and had kids. His oldest just got his drivers license and this tire has no cracks whatsoever at 15+ years old.

 

The spare wasn't in the sun, and better rubber.

Michelin used to hold up so well, around 10 or so years ago they changed the compound of their rubber so it wouldn't last so long. Since then, their tires have been known to crack. Still a good brand of tire, but not as good as before,

 

i will not run michelins for that reason.
my 99 crown vic came with them. within a year they were sidewall cracked.
i put coopers on it and they were still in good condition when i get rid of it 17 years later.
the 2014 pickup came with michelins. had 6,000 miles on them when i got it and they already had 1/8 inch deep cracks around the beads.
direct sun on the tires, weather conditions and age are the killers of tires.

 

Also ozone kills tire rubber. If you park near electric motors or in any community where the air pollution is bad, your tires won't survive very well.

I started to use cheap tire covers from Harbor Freight on tires that are parked out in the sun. They seem to help, but the air pollution still gets them.

 

Tire covers from Harbor Freight... I'll have to look into them. Thanks.

 

IMHO, avoid all the Michelin tires and their related families...including BFG that they bought about 10 years ago..... the "Orange Oil" compounds have had some real ugly failures and lawsuits as well..... I run Yokohama on all our vehicles (20 years).... very tough well built tires... never had one with sidewall cracks yet.....

 

I will look into Yokohamas. Thanks.

 

Agee...depending on the size of tire, I use 33 gallon contractor trash bags to cover the tires on my "Toys"...............

 

+1 for BFG's being horrid