Tire Date Code

[roadrunnerh]

I ordered tires, Silvertown Radials, from Summit. One of the tires has the following date code (5015)! 50th week of 2015.
Mid December 2015 (it's 8/17/17 today). Too old for me, it's going back.
This is after three employees at Summit said they rotate the tire stock and the tires will not be more than 6 months old.
How about you? How old is too old for a "new" tire?

 

[mopardug]

Hi. A lot of people get hung up on the date code, but that's not the entire answer. The real question should be is how long have they been in climate controlled storage? I've been told by more than one manufacture that they didn't consider warehouse time to be 'wear' time. If I remember correctly. there was a magazine article about a winged car that had been in a museum setting for decades, and there was some concern about driving it on a speedway with the tires that were on her. I seem to remember them contacting Goodyear, and the answer was to drive her with them on, even at speed. Now I think we both know that they didn't perform as well as a new tire would, nor did they last as long-the tires did start to come apart at some point-but they weren't unusable. Some tires will always have an older date, but the date doesn't discount them from being a great tire. Just my 2 cents. Take care.

 

[1969CoronetR/T]

I sell conveyor belting (very similar to tires) and store some of the belts outside if the warehouse is too full. The belts are wrapped from the factory and are fine outside in the elements as long as they are out of direct sunlight (covered). The UV rays can start to degrade the manmade rubber prematurely after a while, but I would guess it would take many months. Natural pure gum rubber will degrade much faster so I think this gets mixed up with the manmade and much more stable rubber. The quarries do not cover their conveyors or their surplus belting and I have never heard of a problem in my twenty years of business. Tires left in a warehouse should be fine as I have remnant belt pieces a few years old in my warehouse.

 

[roadrunnerh]

Maybe I'm thinking it's more of an issue than it really is? Still, I'd rather have newer tires when I spend my money.

 

[dual fours]

What is the date code on the others, I assume you bought four?
Didn't three employees say "The tires will not be more then six months old."
Could that older tire's compound be slightly different then the newer tires?
I've read a long time ago that in the future, auto inspections will require checking tire date codes, but that may never happen.
And since in Pennsylvania, Antique tags do not require a yearly state inspection, that will not be a problem. Now if you have Classic or Regular Tags, problem.

 

[Darter6]

roadrunnerh, same as you I bought 4 Cooper Cobras(Discount Tire) 3 had the same date at about 4 months old. one was at 2 years.Guess which one dry cracked first ? Yep the 2 year older one. Car was always stored inside out of sun light.Maybe racked up 1000 miles in the next year. I'm with you, we were buying "new" tires so you expect "new".

 

[Darter6]

10 year old BFG let go taking out the quarter on this challenger.Bet he will want "new" too.

 

[KENTON]

My 40 has 22 year old coopers on it with 28,000 miles.
All my cars have had the tires on them for more than a couple years.
They just don't get driven that much.

 

[roadrunnerh]

What is the date code on the others, I assume you bought four?
Didn't three employees say "The tires will not be more then six months old."
Could that older tire's compound be slightly different then the newer tires?
I've read a long time ago that in the future, auto inspections will require checking tire date codes, but that may never happen.
And since in Pennsylvania, Antique tags do not require a yearly state inspection, that will not be a problem. Now if you have Classic or Regular Tags, problem.

Well, Summit only had 3 in stock. 2 of which had 8 month old dates, one was the 2015 tire.
They had Coker Tire drop ship the 4th tire to me. Ironically, the Coker tire was very close to the first 2 tire dates - about 8 months old.
Summit had UPS pick up the 2015 tire, Now I'm waiting on the replacement which will also be drop shipped from Coker.

 

[ckessel]

Be prepared for them to not be round too. At my work, we've done two sets of repro tires, supplied by car owners, that were not round due to how they are stored.

 

[dual fours]

How should the tires be stored and not stored?

 

[roadrunnerh]

Be prepared for them to not be round too. At my work, we've done two sets of repro tires, supplied by car owners, that were not round due to how they are stored.

So far, the three I've had mounted and balanced are great!

 

[ckessel]

I believe its supposed to be flat like brake drums. All 8 tires balanced fine but they were moving quite a bit radially. The guy with the white walls came back complaining of a 40-45 shake. The balance was fine but can't do anything about not being round.