<VV> Tire Dating

[Bill Elliott]

Yes, there is a DOT stamp on every tire sold in the US.

 From a reference site:

"Here's a typical DOT number that might be found on a European tire... 
DOT XT VE XKAw 09xx. What's all this mean?

The obvious is DOT, Department of Transportation, but next is XT. The 
two letters or numbers following "DOT" refer to the manufacturer and the 
factory location at which the tire was made, in this case Pirelli's 
factory in Sandbach, West Germany. The "VE" is a typical letter - number 
combination that refers to the specific mold used for forming the tire. 
The "XKAw" can mean anything... possibly even secret code from one 
Pirelli chap to another, but likely batch codes. And the final numbers 
refer to the date when the tire was made. In the case of our example 
"09" is the ninth week of "xx", where "xx" can either be a single digit 
if the tire was made prior to 2000 or 2 digits if after 2000. The "xx" 
is the year. A single "7" would be 1997, "03" would be 2003."

Those final four numbers are the key to age... it's also worth looking 
at when you are buying NEW tires... sometimes those "new" tires are 
really quite old...

Bill



Bill Kronen wrote:

> With all the discussion and agreement that tires age, just how do you 
> tell how old a tire is?  Is there a production date imprinted on 
> tires?  Do you have to check manufacturer, model, size, etc?  Just 
> curious.
> Bill Kronen
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