Just noticed over the weekend that the tires on my wife's Mountaineer are cracking between the treads. This is a 2003 Mountaineer with less than 14,000 miles on it. Tires are original BF Goodrich Rugged Trail T/A P245/65R17 105S M+S DT.

I believe I have all of the necessary info there.

Any thoughts? Should I be concerned? Or is this just "normal" for some tires?

 

It should not be a problem as long as there is no air coming from the cracks. It is just the ozone effect on the rubber. It is mainly and appearance blemish.

 

Very strange. Must be some tires/brands/sizes are more susceptible to this. My 2002 Ranger with 38,000 miles has almost none of this.

Thanks for the response!

 

Usually cracking of the rubber is a sign of ozone damage from being outside too long.

It is something that can indicate that the rubber is getting too old and may fail. If you are nervous, have a competant tire dealer inspect it for you. Your tires are kind of new to be having this problem. Are you parking it a lot in hot weather? With your low miles you may have the same problem as trailer tires get, not many miles and more weather damage. Also are you properly inflated?

Small cracks are probably not a big issue but deeper or wide cracks especially if they go all around the tire can be a problem. If you can see any cord, it is time to change.

Could be the factory had a bad day or a poor batch of rubber. Usually cracking doesn't happen this quickly unless there is some outside cause like lots of heat without enough driving, low inflation, maybe an ozone source like a big transformer in a garage etc.

Trailer Life magazine recommends disposal when you see cracks in the sidewall of a trailer tire. Trailers usually get more weathering than vehicle tires and it is usually one side with more damage since it faces the sun most of the time. The usual recommendation for replacement on trailers is something like 5 years unless you have lots of mileage. Your tires may not be trailer tires, but the symptoms are similar.

If it was me I would probably take a good look at the entire tread and evaluate the condition of the sidewalls too. If the cracks are deep I would probably change them. They might still be under a mileage warranty. A Goodrich dealer should be properly trained to evaluate the situation and if nothing else you can have it documented in case something does happen.

Old cracked tires can blow out suddenly and since the other tires are usually as bad, you often can have multiple flats within a short time which means no spare. So You should have them checked.

Good Luck,

Jim Henderson

 

Definitely take them to a BFG dealer, it is dry rot, the tires are 3+ years old and everything said about sun damage/ozone damage in above posts is true. The biggest problem with dry rot in the tread is that water will get in the belts andrust them quickly/then they will break, and you will have out of round and dangerous tires. They should be pro-rated by tread depth-not mileage due to it being a defect in the tire. I've been a goodyear manager for 13 years. get them checked.

 

Thanks, everyone. I will definitely take it to a dealer shortly. Truck is parked outside in driveway, never in a garage. We live in Michigan, just north of Detroit, so not an extreme amount of hot weather. However, as my wife only drives 3 miles back and forth to work, it does spend a good deal of time parked. I check inflation regularly and have never found them down by more than 3 lbs, so that seems unlikely as a major factor.

Will let you know on results.

 

I would agree with the others here in that it is very premature for a tire to do this. Much like your vehicle my car was driven to and from work for just 3 miles each day and sat outside the whole time. I have never had cracking on the treads of a tire that was that new. I have seen it on some that are getting to be 10 or so years old (on a pair of vehicles that get driven three times a year!).