Hi All - What I'd like to know is how many of you drive your trucks on tires showing "dry rot" or "weather checking" or whatever some out there may call it. When I speak to the folks at tire stores they say what I expected them to say - "you'll kill yourself and hopefully not take someone else with you." When I speak to a few old timers who call the older tires "REAL rubber" they say they run their tires into the ground regardless of their condition; and "bias tires are indestructible."


I have Firestone Super All Tractions on the rear of my truck. There's obvious cracking. I will be doing around-town driving only. No highway and more than likely no loads. I pride myself on common sense and know these tires aren't the safest for the road. But I wonder just how many out there still drive on tires that are less than stellar.


Open for discussion.

 

Heavy loads, near or above design capacity, high speeds, get them off there. Putting around town with little or no load at normal F5 speeds, I would not be all that concern.
JMHO.

 

Any radial tire that is more than 6 or 7 years old is subject to tread separation. To find the age of the tire look for the DOT code in the sidewall. There are several different formats of this code, but they all start with DOT. After that you will see some numbers and letters. The important part of this code is the last 4 digits, as they are the date of manufacture. The first 2 digits are the week, and the last 2 are the year. For example, 1812 would mean that the tire was made during the 18th week of 2012. If there are only 3 digits, then the tire was built before 2000.

You'll always hear about the guys who have driven on the same tires for 10, 15, even 20 years, but is it worth risking your truck, your life, or someone else's life?

 

I don't risk it. The roads and highways in AZ are littered with tire carcasses largely because of the heat. Add 80 MPH speeds and you better have good tires. I also worked in a trauma center and saw the result of high speed blowouts.


It would be different if I had a tractor or farm truck out on dirt roads.

 

Those tires as described will not pass the Pennsylvania vehicle inspection
If any one id planning on driving in Erie County PA with those tires please send me a PM so that I can stay off the roads at that time

 

I have friends with limited tire budgets and old cars. They do not run radials because good looking radials with age like to throw belts and damage the vehicle. They run bias ply tires, some with serious age, and expect safe failures. High speed cars get the newer bias bly tires (10 years old or so). The older tires get rotated to the slower vehicles. One of their TT trucks has tires that must be at least 45 years old.

 

There has to be some reason why tire manufacturers say you should replace tires every three years.
A tire guy I deal with says they're not using as much oil as they used to. Also tire shine products don't help.

 

I have a set of tires on a 66 dodge coronet 440 and they have been on the car since 1976! They look like new still and that's because they have only seen 200 days of sunshine in the last 40 years.


If tires have visible cracks then they are only good for off highway service IMO

 

Pennsylvania does not require any inspections on vehicles that are registered as Antique


Ed
near Philadelphia

 

Old rubber gets less and less flexible resulting in less and less traction. New tires are much cheaper than any kind of accident.

 

I learned about date codes on tires after I bought my 1970 F350 in 2012. The tires looked good, had good tread, but I blew a rear tire out. Scared the crap out of me and my wife. I think the problem was one dual was a little under inflated and it may have rubbed against the dual next to it.

Anyway, I bought 4 new ones for the rear ASAP. And had to earn a little more money to replace the front two. I looked on the side wall to find the date code and they were so old it didn't have a date code.

 

I'd guess they want to sell you new tires every 3 years.

Probably depends on where you live.....I'd bet hot sunny climates shorten tire life a bunch.

As with everything, use common sense.

 

Ambulance chasers. It limits liability and they sell more tires. Why wouldn't they recommend it?

 

Here's an old tire story.......

DISCLAIMER....this is not an endorsement for using unsafe tires!

Back in '06 i needed some drain rock for my septic drainfield, I figured 15-20 yards. The gravel pit is only about 3 miles away, so I figure I could haul it in my '53 F600. It has a 15' grain box and a 390 v8.
At that time the tires were easily 30 years old(8.25-20's on WM rims) and you could easily stick a nickle in the cracks between the lugs. However they had looked like that for at least 20 years, so I wasn't panicking. I figured on making a couple trips of 5-6 yards each.
So I get to the pit and tell the loader operator what I want....he goes with his 12 yard bucket and starts dumping it in. Of course WAY too much! I roll over the scale at 26,500 LBS!!! I can't believe the tires don't blow......too much weight, the hoist won't lift it to dump some out, so off I go. I made it, but was sweating all the way home at 30 mph.
Used the backhoe to drag some of the rock out so it would dump.
Next trip over the scales was 22,000(even after chewing out the loader guy). Last trip he had it down to 18k.
Those old bias tires really surprised me on how tuff they were. They are still on the truck, but I don't use it anymore.

The moral in my case is....hire a dump truck next time!

 

The problem dry rot/cracked rubber causes on steelbelted tires is the steel belts rust, they can last for a while after the rubber starts cracking at low speed but they are literally a ticking time bomb with a unknown timer on how long that really is..... I've seen spare tires in that condition in the back of a truck bed that have exploded just sitting there, The old nylon belted tires would last for literally as long as you could keep air in them and tread on them at low speeds, it's not the same for a steel belted tire.