Brand New Tires That Are "old"...alert

[DDD]

An old friend sent me an ABC video about tires. I'll make it short but want to share the warning. Many "brand new never been used" tires that are sold by trusted retailers are, in fact, old and apt to have the tread separate from the tire resulting in injury or death. Tires should NOT be more than six years old...from date of manufacturer NOT date of purchase.

On the outside of each tire you will find a series of letters and numbers.
Sometimes this side of the tire is mounted with those number on the axle side not the outside. There are three rectangular boxes with clipped edges. The last box has four digits in it. The lst two digits represent the
week that the tire was actually manufactured. The last two digits represent the year the tire was manufactured. So, for example, 4202
means your tire was made in the 42nd week of 2002. It is six years old
even if you bought it last week. It is dangerous.

I haven't checked mine yet but I'm going to do it tonight. We've just always "assumed" that if we buy new tires the kids are safe and so are we
but a number of families have lost members because they did not know what to check either. DDD

PS: I'm beginning to remind myself of "my Mother" who always had dire
warnings that we all laughed about and forgot.

 

[mstang67chic]

I've never heard of that. I'll be sure to ask about it at work and maybe check some dates while I wander around the warehouse.

 

[flutterbee]

Are these the retreads....what you see all over the highway that has come off of tires? I thought they only used those on semi's. Good to know. Thanks for passing this along.

 

[KTMom91]

Interesting info...thanks for sharing it.

 

[trinityroyal]

Heather, I've heard of this too.
They're not retreads, just old stock that's been lying around someone's warehouse for far too long.

Some wholesaler sells old stock to a tire store, the tire store sells it to a customer, you end up buying brand new tires that have been sitting in a warehouse deteriorating for 10 years, and then wonder why they fall apart so quickly. In a worse scenario, they fall apart while you're driving somewhere causing you to lose control.

Thanks DDD.

Trinity

 

[overwhelmed...]

This is very true. We have a case in our law firm right now regarding the exact same thing. Ours, however, wasn't a new tire purchased as new, but a used tire. The 10 year old tire was sold and ended up blowing out on the driver. The car was then disabled in the middle of the highway. Our "client" came upon the accident and wasn't able to stop in time and ended up dying from his injuries.

It's very important that you check your tires whether purchased new or used. The problem is that the numbers that indicate the age of the tire are printed on the inside of the tire. You'd have to be a mechanic or tire person to even know where those numbers are located or what they represent.

 

[DDD]

Although we plan to check our tires out, this info will be helpful when buying the next "new tires". Now we know to request a gander at the numbers on the tires before they are mounted. The report stated that some garages that sell tires don't even know where to find the manufacture date. In smaller communities like ours, I'm sure that's true.
DDD

 

[mstang67chic]

I did check a tire today at work when I was out in the ware house. The only problem is that I wasn't out there long and I could only see one tire. They stack them pretty high and I'm pretty short. The one I did see though, was a semi tire and had the numbe 3908 so at least that stack really IS new.