<VV> Old tires

[Tony Underwood]

At 04:41 PM 10/27/2012, Nick Elzinga wrote:
>He probably had no idea how old the tires were until I pointed it out, but I
>wasn't going to waste my money on time-expired rubber.
>
>Nick
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: virtualvairs-bounces at corvair.org
>Subject: Re: <VV> Old tires
>
>Just read in the AAA travel magazine that the safe life on tires, regardless
>of mileage, is about 6 years.



A lot depends on who made the tires.  Seriously.


I once had 5 year old tires (some store brand, not a major 
manufacturer's brand) that looked like new, that started to come 
apart before they had any appreciable wear begin showing.  They had 
been on the car when purchased, and only had a "couple thou" on them 
at that time.  I looked up the dates, felt that 5 years wasn't bad 
for tires that showed very little wear and no cracking etc.

They didn't last a year.  The two on back went within a month or so 
of each other, developed thumps and bulges.  The two on front got 
tossed shortly afterward since I didn't trust them.

I bought a set of Goodyear Regatta tires at a Corvair show, 
185r13s.  The date code said they were 2003 tires but they had been 
stored inside and were unused.  Three  failed within a year.  One 
shed a chunk of tread. One blew out when the bead split/separated 
from the sidewall.  One began leaking and wouldn't hold air because 
of a separation of the rubber in the bead from the metal chords, 
didn't trust it at all with a tube or anything else.  I tossed it and 
#4.  None of them showed ANY noticeable wear on the tread and they 
all were properly inflated.

There were two Regattas with low miles and two Sears Guardsman tires 
on the '62 ragtop, fresh, when it was purchased some years ago.  Both 
brands looked alike, in fact I thought they were all the same brand 
until I looked closer.   After a few thousand miles, the Regattas 
began showing some fine cracks in the tread and one began to leak 
down gradually.  I tossed them.  The Guardsman tires still look just 
fine and in fact are still on the front (oddly enough, the Sears 
tires were originally both on the driver side and the Goodyears were 
both on the pass. side).   The Sears tires are both still doing fine, 
looking solid, never need air.

At the last 'Vair Fair we bought four Kelly (70 series) tires from a 
vendor, very low miles, not enough to wear off the casting nipples on 
the tread, seller said he'd bought them and run them for only a short 
time before finding a set of 185r13s which he'd wanted for the 
car.  The Kelly tires looked new and had date codes of 11-09.  They 
went onto the '62 Ragtop.  One on the rear came apart after less than 
1000 miles.  They were properly inflated.  The other Kelly on the 
rear was removed and is now a spare (I trust it enough to maybe get 
the car home if another tire fails).  The two old Sears Guardsman 
tires previously removed went BACK onto the car and are being watched 
closely.  They are, as mentioned before, still doing well, no 
troubles.   They have the old pre-2000 date code of 078, which means 
it could be  July of 1988 or 1998. They're holding up a bit better 
than the much newer tires that went onto the car.   :)


My '60 currently still has its Firestone 185r80 tires dated 2409 
making them a bit more than 3 years old and still have about 80% of 
tread remaining.  They look fine albeit dirty.  They were the last 
four remaining 185r13s that the local Firestone chain had in stock, 
had to wait a couple days to get them.


The spare tire in the '60 is an ancient Firestone 700-13 bias 
ply.  It's the same tire that was in the car when I got it in 1984 
and it was worn then.  It's mounted on what looks like the original 
silver spare tire rim that would have come with the car.  The date 
code is kinda useless in this instance.  :)   That spare has been 
used several times along the way.  It doesn't leak, it's still solid, 
and last time it got used for any substantial time it took the car 
about 100 miles while awaiting the arrival of the four new Firestones 
on the car now.   The '67 coupe still has the D78-13 spare that was 
in it when it was bought 12 years ago.  It's also still solid.


I can hazard the remark that as far as tires are concerned, they 
truly don't make them like they used to.



tony..