[Bill S]

Any thoughts on Coker reproductive Firestone Wide Ovals ? I recall reading old time bias ply tires held up good over time, but wear quick vs radials. Not sure about these "special" tires. I like the old school look of these, but for half the price can get Cooper Cobras or BFG TA's. Putting on 1000-2000 miles a year, may feel better wearing out the bias vs tossing radials with thread left.

My current Firestone Firehawks are 2000 vintage, so they got to go.

[HWYSTR455]

Michelin says 10 years max, anything after that you are on your own.

https://www.michelinman.com/auto/aut...ar%20indicator.

That is the longest I've seen any tire company list as an age limit. Maybe they are superior materials and construction?


.

[grivera]

The 10 year recommendation illustrates how subjective this is as there is no disclaimer that it only applies to Michelin tires

[HWYSTR455]

I doubt they would make recommendations for others' tires but is some truth there.

You heat a tire up for a smoky burnout, and it doesn't matter what any manufacturers' recommendation is, it's all out the window.

It really boils down to what risks you are willing to take, and how much you have to lose. If it's a rat-rod with minimal investment or uber-rich you would be more likely to take that risk.

Ask yourself, in that whatever fraction of risk ever knocks on your door, and it's a total loss, how would you feel?

.

[78w72]

I doubt very many people actually change their tires after 5 years or 6-8, on a classic car that sees ~1000-1500 miles/year & sits in a garage or covered 90% of the time. 5k-8k miles and 60-70% tread remaining with no cracking or slipped belt issues does not warrant replacement IMO for the vast majority of people that own these types of cars going to dairy queen or car shows.
Not many people spend $800-1000+ on 4 tires every 5-8 years. Again, let me know when you are throwing away or actually paying a dollar or 2 each to have a shop dispose of 5-6 year old tires in good shape, I will take them!

Any age tire can blow out, have seen & heard of newer tires doing that too. Ive been a passenger in a car that blew a tire on the interstate back in the mid 1990's doing 60-65mph, was a junky mid 70's nova with rusty quarters/fenders... guy wasnt a car guy or experienced driver at all, it jerked the steering wheel some and got a little squirrely but no damage to the cars body nor was it ever close to losing control... every situation is different & everything you do in life has risks, changing out tires in good condition that are used at lower speeds every 5 years is not something I do or lose sleep over.

Another thing that applies here that nobody mentioned, just like many failures of engines or transmissions etc, is from... USER ERROR or negligence. Ive seen so many cars driving around with severely underinflated tires, or over inflated, or the owner didnt notice that their tire of any age is worn unevenly from bad alignment or worn shocks, had a bulge, etc etc, cant blame the tire for that. Same for engines, you cant really blame the engine itself for spinning a bearing because a guy put 2 gallons of ATF in the engine... or ran it off mt everest runnin shine! Point is there are way too many variables related to a tires condition or failure than some arbitrary date.
I check my tires inflation regularly as well as inspect them visibly and dont do things they arent designed to do, like 130 mph runs on city streets to test the max speed of the cam... or long high speed interstate use or racing on older tires.

I also know of one of the nicest lowest mile T/As out there (~5000 miles) thats actually driven that still has the original goodyear polysteel radials on it, guy drives it occasionally around town and to car shows etc, tires look like new still... so much for 5 years old, how about 45+ years?

Michelin makes/owns quite a few tire brands so their recommendation could be for more than 1 tire, they also own/make BFG tires now and BFG warrants them for 6 years, not sure if they suggest a maximum time limit though.

[The Champ]

Originally Posted by 78w72

I doubt very many people actually change their tires after 5 years or 6-8, on a classic car that sees ~1000-1500 miles/year & sits in a garage or covered 90% of the time. 5k-8k miles and 60-70% tread remaining with no cracking or slipped belt issues does not warrant replacement IMO for the vast majority of people that own these types of cars going to dairy queen or car shows.
Not many people spend $800-1000+ on 4 tires every 5-8 years. Again, let me know when you are throwing away or actually paying a dollar or 2 each to have a shop dispose of 5-6 year old tires in good shape, I will take them!

I am one of those people.

I also have had a belt separate on the Interstate while driving home from a car show because of old tires that still had 80% of their tread left.

I didn't know back then that tires degrade sitting on the rack at the tire store, much less being driven.

I drive 2 - 3,000 miles per year. I did get 4,500 miles on the GTO one year. The GTO has had 5 sets of tires since I started driving it in 1994.

With all the money we have in our toy cars, if a person can't justify putting aside $100 - 150.00 per year for tires to insure your own safety, they should sell their car now.

I'll have two sets of tires to sell next year if you're buying. GTO tires are Continental DWS 06's - 215/55/17 front and 245/50/17 rear. Camaro tires are Continental Extreme Contact's - 235/45/17 front and 275/40/17 rear.

[geeteeohguy]

Originally Posted by Bill S

Any thoughts on Coker reproductive Firestone Wide Ovals ? I recall reading old time bias ply tires held up good over time, but wear quick vs radials. Not sure about these "special" tires. I like the old school look of these, but for half the price can get Cooper Cobras or BFG TA's. Putting on 1000-2000 miles a year, may feel better wearing out the bias vs tossing radials with thread left.

My current Firestone Firehawks are 2000 vintage, so they got to go.

Bias ply tires are not steel belted, and don't explode and come apart like steel belted radials do. They can blow out, but tend to cause no damage to the car. I've run 45+ year old bias ply tires on cars in the past with no issues. And 20+ year old Goodyear ST radials. The new steel belted radials are not the same quality rubber used in the past due to the Green Agenda, and deteriorate much quicker. So, I would be inclined to run older bias ply tires with no worry as long as they were not degraded, but it's a tougher call with steel belted radials. I have a friend who is running 74 year old Wards Riversides on his '26 Ford, but it never sees over 40 mph.

[mgarblik]

Three days ago I had a customer bring me a set of 1984 Corvette wheels with original tires on them. April, 1984 was the date code on them. Goodyear Gatorbacks. The rubber was extremely hard and the tires were very difficult to dismount. Had some light cracking in the sidewalls but no visible cracks in the tread roots. Tires had 11,000 miles on the. He wanted the tires back to sell with the car when it goes up for sale soon.

[Sirrotica]

Originally Posted by geeteeohguy

Bias ply tires are not steel belted, and don't explode and come apart like steel belted radials do. They can blow out, but tend to cause no damage to the car. I've run 45+ year old bias ply tires on cars in the past with no issues. And 20+ year old Goodyear ST radials. The new steel belted radials are not the same quality rubber used in the past due to the Green Agenda, and deteriorate much quicker. So, I would be inclined to run older bias ply tires with no worry as long as they were not degraded, but it's a tougher call with steel belted radials. I have a friend who is running 74 year old Wards Riversides on his '26 Ford, but it never sees over 40 mph.

When I was young (late 50s, early 60s) it wasn't at all uncommon to see bias ply tires that were all weather checked on a street driven car, likely at least 20 years old. Tire companies were still using some latex based compounds in them at the time of manufacture. Firestone had on the sidewalls of some of their tires, "Gum Dipped", so they were still using some natural latex compounds in the rubber.

There is a huge difference between how well that rubber stood up, as compared to todays green, cheap overseas, synthetic rubber. All you need to do is compare how old weather stripping, and windshield wiper blades hold up now, as compared to 20-30 years ago.

It was also addressed as to whether Michelin used better materials in their tires. As long as I've been around cars Michelin has always made a premium product, but along with the better materials, engineering, and labor, they do get a premium price for their product.

When I worked as a road service mechanic on construction site equipent, the company I worked for would replace the OEM tires with Michelin on all the service trucks. I knew it was costing them a premium for the better tires, so I asked the owner why he insisted on Michelin. He explained since we dealt in service what he might lose in not being able to handle a service call due to a tire failure of a cheaper brand might cost, and the customer him many times in down time, over what the difference in tire prices was. When you have 20 bricklayers, and laborers standing around because of a machine breakdown, it gets expensive real quick. His philosophy was overall the mileage we got out of better tires, plus downtime, more than made up for the premium price of the Michelin tires. An example of penny wise, and pound foolish.

[694.1]

My Continentals are 12 years old. Always aired up, summer driven, garaged. Can't believe I have 80K on them and pretty fair tread.
We'll see what the next year holds.

[4dblnkldude]

I'm a 10 year guy here. The wife was driving our 2018 Jeep Cherokee. The front left blew out making a right into the driveway. Four year old tires, blew out the sidewall with at least 50% tread left. I had two other blowouts. both front tires same time on my first car a 79 firebird. After doing 120 plus on the super highway I pulled into the local pool hall, busted a U turn in the back parking lot boom and a second later boom both fronts. They were probably old but don't remember how old.

[mrennie]

I'm from Scottish heritage (cheap). My Cooper Cobras are 7 years old...were installed 2 years ago and will see the road for the first time in a few months. They look mint, have not a crack, mark, or check on them and no way I would throw them away without a visual indicator of a problem. My plan is to drive it hard and rotate them to use them all up by 10 years or when I see an issue.

One difference that matters is that there is no extreme heat here, which I believe is a factor.

Have over 10 years on the front tire of my sport bike, still looks like new, maybe 4,000 km on it and no cracks, routinely sees 200+ km/hr for a few seconds on my way to work in the morning as I rip through the gears. Crazy??? Maybe.

Risk tolerance is an individual thing. I am more inclined to take a risk if I am alone. If I had a car full of kids, that would be another matter. Stating that anything is garbage after X amount of time without any other considerations is arbitrary.

YMMV

[The Champ]

To those of you who are relying on external appearance of the rubber to determine status of a tire....

The external condition of the rubber doesn't tell you anything about the condition of the core of the tire. In my case, it was belt separation that cause the problem. You can't see that until it fails.

Looking at my tires before they failed, they looked fine. To use Mrennie's words, could have said, "They look mint, have not a crack, mark, or check on them and no way I would throw them away without a visual indicator of a problem.", yet driving home from a car show I ended up with a knot the size of my fist in the tread surface with steel cords sticking out through the tread. The other three tires still looked perfect, I had an unused matching spare that I put on.

After the failure of tire #1 of that set, maybe I had a heightened sensitivity to vibrations. Within 500 miles I felt a vibration again. Still couldn't see anything wrong with any of the tires, but when I put another set of tire on the vibration went away.

I only discovered the beginning of a belt separation on those other three tires when I was rolling them in the shop and they twerked at the same spot. Upon very close inspection focused on about 3" of the tread - I found the slightest bump on the tread surface on all three remaining tires. They were a time bomb that I was lucky enough to defuse (by taking them off the car) before a major failure on the highway at speed.

We have discussions on this board all the time about having the right insurance to protect our toys, what modifications to make to improve them to make them accelerate faster, brake better, handle better, get better gas mileage or even look better. Examples - overdrive transmissions, fuel injection systems, stronger rear ends, sway bars, different springs, roller camshafts, custom wheels...

All those things cost money. In many cases, LOT's of money.

And here we have numerous people that don't want to budget $100 per year or so for tires for their pride and joy.

I just don't get it.

[78w72]

Originally Posted by The Champ

I am one of those people.

I also have had a belt separate on the Interstate while driving home from a car show because of old tires that still had 80% of their tread left.

I didn't know back then that tires degrade sitting on the rack at the tire store, much less being driven.

I drive 2 - 3,000 miles per year. I did get 4,500 miles on the GTO one year. The GTO has had 5 sets of tires since I started driving it in 1994.

With all the money we have in our toy cars, if a person can't justify putting aside $100 - 150.00 per year for tires to insure your own safety, they should sell their car now.

I'll have two sets of tires to sell next year if you're buying. GTO tires are Continental DWS 06's - 215/55/17 front and 245/50/17 rear. Camaro tires are Continental Extreme Contact's - 235/45/17 front and 275/40/17 rear.

Theres noting wrong with being one of those people... everyone can make their own decisions on things like this, 2k-4.5k/year is more miles than the average classic car sees & if you do lots of interstate or high speed driving that is also not what the average classic does so you probably want to change the tires more often, and as mentioned every situation is different. One guy just mentioned blowing out 2 tires after doing ... 120mph! Not the tires fault.

I own 3 classic pontiacs, another reason why my cars see lower miles than most, its hard for 1 guy to drive high miles with 3 cars when they spend 4-5 months in winter storage each year. So spending ~$1000 every 5 years, that some claim is a magical date to replace tires regardless of condition, on 3 different cars, plus a daily driver can get VERY expensive. Im probably younger than some on here but after driving a lot of miles for 35+ years I have never seen a reason to change good condition tires after 5 years.

I actually have a set of brand new 15" BFG tires stored down in my basement along with my drag tires/wheels, the BFG are probably 4-5 years old... I will happily use them for many many years here soon when i mount them as long as there are no indications of a problem... i dont do 100+mph when I drive around town, no autox or drag racing on my street tires and no long interstate trips planned for my cars. Knock on wood, but I think im pretty safe driving on my 5-8+ year old tires that are in good condition still & so are most other people if they use the tires as designed & monitor their condition, IMO.

Thanks for the offer on the tires but I dont use 17" tires except A/T type on my daily 4runner SUV, my cars all have 15" RWL.

Edit- regarding slipped belts, you can usually see a slipped belt, I had one on a set of general A/T tires on my old jeep cherokee, could easily see the distortion in the tread where the belt slipped & could feel it in the steering wheel, felt like out of balance when driving at lower speeds around town... visual inspection does work & showed me that before it got worse. My own friends & family members dont pay attention to things like that and just drive till something fails on their cars, which is what most average drivers & soccer mom types do, oblivious to signs of something wrong with the car.

[The Champ]

78w72

I have three collector cars too. I didn't mention the tires for the '49 Caddy Limo - didn't think you'd be interested in 750x16" wide whitewalls...

Part of the problem with my redline Uniroyal's is that they sat in the dealer's warehouse for years before I bought them. Tires start aging the day they leave the factory, not when they're mounted.

FWIW - I never recommended changing tires every 5 years.

My last tire replacement was the GTO and the Camaro at the same time. Was it a large expense? Not as much as a 5 spd overdrive transmission and a very small fraction of what I have in the cars. To me it's just part of the deal with owning old cars.

The GTO gets driven the most, but tire changes are done by age, not by miles driven.

[78w72]

Champ

Sounds like a cool car/limo, Im guessing its not driven very much and depending on the type/quality of the tires I doubt they need to be changed in the time some are advocating. But changing as you see fit and can afford is perfectly fine. For me & many others, we cant or dont want to spend $1000 every 5-6 years when the tires are physically ok based on everything you can see... again even brand new tires with 500 miles can be defective or have problems from user error.

I realize tires start aging the day they are made, but how much & what that actually does to the tires is debatable & unproven that they all need replaced just from sitting in a store or persons house for a handful of years.
The 4-5 year old new BFGs in my basement are still as soft as they were when new, still have that new tire smell everytime I go down to the laundry room, and are perfectly safe to cruise around on a couple thousand easy miles per year, IMO.

I also have a few good friends that are life long mechanics & tire tech guys, one has been at goodyear for 35+ years... he/they dont usually change tires that are in good condition but may be past some arbitrary date, some say 5 years some say 7... michelin says 10. its all case by case & tire companies want to sell you new tires so they come up with a magical date and for their own liability reasons. Also lots of shops still sell used tires, many are well over 5 years old.

Change tires, oil, braided fuel hose, washer hose, etc etc as you see fit & can afford, but anyone telling others what they have to do based on a subjective date or opinion or a worst case scenario is pointless since each situation is different is all I was saying.

[64-3Deuces]

For those who have access to the GTOAA’s The Legend, the March 2024 issue has a short article on tire failure. Nothing ground breaking as it is just one person’s perspective however, some of the points he discussed have been mentioned in this thread.

[Sirrotica]

FWIW, I used to be someone that would run their tires until there was little tread left before I replaced them. One day after buying my K3500 dually I had recently rebuilt a new rocker panel out of flat sheetmetal, and finished welding it under the bottom of the door.

On the way home from work I felt a slight vibration in the steering wheel, and the tread seperated from the tire carcass. Before I could hit the brakes, and get off on the berm, all the new sheet metal was hammered like a madman hit it with a 3 lb sledge hammer for 5 minutes. That was at about 50 MPH.

All the new metal I had just welded on less than a week earlier was destroyed. Until you have the body destroyed by flailing tread seperated from the cords you won't apprecite how much damage, can happen, really quickly. It also dented the bottom of the door slightly. So keep driving on old tires, I did it too. When it destroys your wheelwell, then maybe you might reconsider not driving on tires that appear OK from physical examination. That's what it took for me to learn that at about 60 years old. My luck finally ran out with driving on old tires.

I would be quite upset if that happened to my GTO today, instead of my 15 year old dually at the time.

Since then, I've had a BFG T/A KDW OEM tires on the 05 GTO, and a Continental Extreme Contact tire break steel belts on my 05 GTO, both were within the 6 year window. The belts came out of the area where the tread. and the sidewall meet. One tire failed completely, the other I managed to get home at about 20 MPH, after snipping the steel belt off so it wouldn't flail the body.

The truck tire was really old, but it was a Michelin, and it was past their 10 year limit by about 5 years. The 2 high performance rear tires on the GTO weren't past their dates...............

Expensive lessons, are the best learned lessons.

I don't care if you want to stretch your luck on older tires, it won't affect me in any way. Just putting my experiences on here so manybe someone will head off a bad day.

[The Champ]

Originally Posted by 78w72

For me & many others, we cant or dont want to spend $1000 every 5-6 years when the tires are physically ok based on everything you can see...

If you can't afford replacing aged tires, maybe you can't afford the car. Your exterior examination will not discover any internal problems.

The 4-5 year old new BFGs in my basement are still as soft as they were when new, still have that new tire smell everytime I go down to the laundry room, and are perfectly safe to cruise around on a couple thousand easy miles per year, IMO.

No reputable tire store will sell you a 'brand new' 5 year old tire. They will dispose of it long before then. Most tire stores will clearance out tires approaching 2 years old at a discount.

This debunks the myth that tire dealers/manufacturers only recommend replacing old, yet good looking tires, due to age as you refer to below.

its all case by case & tire companies want to sell you new tires so they come up with a magical date and for their own liability reasons. Also lots of shops still sell used tires, many are well over 5 years old.

Define 'lots of shops'.

I'm sure there are SOME, but I don't know of any around me (and I was an ACDelco territory manager with a $2.5 million dollar book of business selling to new and used car dealers, independent repair shops and fleets - many of whom did a good business in tire sales).

Change tires, oil, braided fuel hose, washer hose, etc etc as you see fit & can afford, but anyone telling others what they have to do based on a subjective date or opinion or a worst case scenario is pointless since each situation is different is all I was saying.

An overdue oil change might cost you and engine. An old tire could (and has) killed someone, is all I'm saying.

[78w72]

LOL. I said some cant or dont want to buy new tires just because they hit some arbitrary date. I can afford new tires every year if I wanted to, i just dont buy things that arent needed nor do I fix things that arent broken.

That doesnt "debunk" anything, I never said a tire shop will sell new 5 year old tires... however, I recently had a few sets of cosmetic defect BFGs replaced through my local sears & discount tire shop, 2 different times I was given tires older than 2 years sent direct from BFG or discounts warehouse, there was no clearance or discount & they would have supplied those tires to me or anyone buying them new. This debunks your statement of what tire stores will do with 2 year old tires.

It is true tire companies want to sell people new tires, so they come up with a date that will make some people buy tires when they arent actually needed, and protect their liability. Same for the outdated 3000 mile oil change, what is that based on, 1970s oil technology? Conventional oils can usually go a lot more than 3000 miles in the average engine nor will it cause a catastrophic failure if you go past that. More extreme worst case scenarios not based in reality.

"Lots" means more than 2 or 3, there is usually at least 2 or 3 shops selling used tires in bigger cities, especially in the southwest big cities, literally all over the place & they usually cant speak english very well! Just because you dont know of any in your town or used to work somewhere doesnt mean they arent out there all over the country.
I have a few in my smaller to medium sized city, these are usually the types of shops that do shady mechanical work & sell used tires to people that cant afford new... theres "lots" of people/shops on ebay that sell used tires too. Does that meet your qualifications for lots or show there are many of these types of places out there?
I just recently sold a set of coopers to one of these shops that were on wheels from a parts car, sold for $15ea & they probably resold them for $25-40ea that is the average price I saw for most their used tires. I use(d) this shop for dismounting/mounting tires because they are a lot cheaper than the bigger places, & up until a few years ago I was getting "lots" of parts cars & batches of parts each year so have dealt with old tires & many shops around my town more than most people. These places have stacks of hundreds of used tires out back that they sell.

Not trying to argue with anyone on this, just stating my experiences. If anyone wants to change tires with good tread & no signs of a problem every 5 or 6 years thats their choice, wont affect me in any way. But the reality is that most people dont do that & catastrophic failures are very rare statistically speaking, of course any tire can fail at any age for many reasons, just far too many variables to blame the tire, is all I'm saying.

I guess I dont live my life based on chance or a small fraction of 1% of something happening. If everyone did that nobody would ever leave their house because there is a .05% chance of being struck by lightning or getting hit by a bus!

Heres some facts & actual stats to show how likely a catastrophic tire failure is... 78k crashes related to blown tires per year, out of those 400 people die, yet many are from commercial vehicles or tractor trailers. & a large amount of them are related to manufacturing defects or as I stated user error/neglect.
Do the math on that number based on just 1 million tires, its like .0004%, then do the math using the real numbers of all the tires on the road, 283million vehicles X 4 tires... my calculator wont even give a number for that for that percentage. Yeah, im gonna drive on my 8 year old 70% tread tires or 4-5 year old "new" tires with no signs of problems cruising around town at lower speeds with zero worries.

https://www.tiredefectattorney.com/h...0on%20highways.