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I just noticed today that quite a few places on my tires (Cooper Discoverer STT) are cracking/splitting in front of the tread lugs, mostly in the center lugs. They range fron about 1/4" to about 5/8", looks like the carcass is slowly seperating.
I've got over 30K miles on the tires and they still have a good bit of tread left, but this has me a little concerned... they get rotated every 5K religiously and I try to keep up on the air pressure as much as possible. Ill try to get pics within the next day or 2.
That usually is combination of age, poor quality and UV (sun) exposure.
I do own vintage bus conversion, where for the experiment I keep one original tire on tag axle. The tire is so old, that nobody can decode the vintage DOT number. It is about 30 years old and still holding 80 psi of pressure for whole year.
But this is the size used in commercial trucking, where new Michelin cost me $550 a piece.
Common car tires have 6 years age warranty. Read the DOT numbers, or post the darn pictures.
Make sure you check the sidewalls for cracks. I have had issues with 2 sets of coopers (8 tires) where the sidewall started developing cracks in less than 6 months. Cooper put out some bad tires and getting a dealer to warrenty them can be a pain.
I run between 55 and 60 psi, back in the winter I aired them down to 45 cuz of the deep snow. Sidewalls are fine, All 4 of my Coopers have cracks in them, the one front has 5 that I saw. I checked the age and they were made in 09, I got them in July of 09 so age is not a problem.
Im thinkin about ordering a set of Hankook Dynapro MT's as a replacement for my Coopers.
I wanted to get pics today but its raining and im at work now. supposed to rain all week.