Another Tire vs Age Opinion

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RLSharp

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We just had a long discussion of tires aging-out before wearing out here. I had posted another article from Ford several years ago recommending that tires generally be replaced after six years of normal service.

In today's (2/12/2012) Arizona Star Sunday paper there is an article by Click & Clack, Tom and Ray Magliozzi, entitled "Tires Really Do Have An Expiration Date." In the article it is stated that Jeep's current owner's manual says that all tires, including the spare, should be replaced after six years, regardless of condition or usage. Tom and Ray discuss in some detail why this may be the case.

I tried to find the article on their web site but it is not archived yet. I will post a link to the complete article when it appears on their web site.

Richard
 
I'd say when so much is riding on your tires, that's good advice!  Blown tires on the road are first of all a nuisance, but more than that there is the safety issue.  Especially on RV's where the damage done by a failed tire can be many times more cost than the cost of replacing them, not to mention the possibility of driving off the road.
 
I've owned a couple of Class A motorhomes over the years (still do), but I don't full-time, and my work schedule has never enabled us to camp/travel as much as we would have liked to (I can't wait to retire). Because of that, I missed out on the whole - "replacing tires due to age" issue until I joined this forum and began reading about it. My 32 foot 1999 Allegro has 24000 miles on it, it's well maintained, it's always garaged when not in use and I always kept the tires aired-up and I checked them for weather-rot. Outwardly, they appeared to be in great shape - but they were the original tires.

When I started reading posts about this on this and other forums, I began to dial into the seriousness of the "aged tire" issue, so I educated myself by reading tire manufacturer recommendations and reports re: tire-life, condition etc. Needless to say, I was rather alarmed when I realized that my 12 year old tires were waaaaay past due for replacement. They looked great - like new in fact - largely because the motorhome has low miles, is always garaged and I'm picky about its condition, but I couldn't get those tires replaced fast enough.

When all 6 tires were replaced last month, I asked the tire-shop owner to look at the old tires (inside and out), and tell me what he thought of their condition. He said they all looked great - inside and out, which isn't what I wanted to hear when I was dropping $2000.00 for new tires. But he also said that, due to the chemical compounds found in tires, and the age of my old tires, there was no way to tell for sure what their condition was. Yes, he's a tire salesman who survives by selling and servicing tires, but he's been in the tire business for nearly 30 years and I trust his experience and judgment.

There's certainly no guarantee that the new tires won't have a blowout, but there's no question that I have much greater peace-of-mind now that my family and I are riding on a new set of tires.

Kev
 
I just put new "shoes" on our coach all the way 'round.  4 of the tires we replaced were Michelin tires that were over 10 years old.  While I am not trying to make a statement that this was either a good or bad idea, I just suggest that you take a look at the tire manufacturers guidelines, consider how often you travel (good) and how often you are parked (bad) when you consider the life span that your particular brand of tire.
 
Bill Adams said:
I just put new "shoes" on our coach all the way 'round.  4 of the tires we replaced were Michelin tires that were over 10 years old.  While I am not trying to make a statement that this was either a good or bad idea, I just suggest that you take a look at the tire manufacturers guidelines, consider how often you travel (good) and how often you are parked (bad) when you consider the life span that your particular brand of tire.
Click to expand...

Not making a statement? ??? .....certainly a level of innuendo there.

I don't think tire brand has a lot to do with it, nor do I think driving or parking has a significant effect on tire life, but more driving certainly gives you more use from your tires for the money. 

As for manufacturers guidlines, about the only variable in the information we receive on tires comes from those companies trying to convince us that their tires are best, and that needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

My statement would be that seven years is certainly the time to consider replacing tires.

I replaced my tires in the spring of 2006.  Under time constraints, I accepted two tires with 2005 date codes.  All eight tires will be replaced this spring before any trip of more than a few miles.
 
You are reading things into my post which do not exist.  I am only stating what I did, not what you or anyone else should do.  You can take a look at Michelin tire guidelines and find them to be different than Goodyear guidelines.  Is this marketing or reality?  I sure don't know, but I do know that my 10 year old Michelin's never let me down and I replaced them with 8 new Michelin's.
 
My sister-inlaw called us on their return trip from CASPER WY, they had a blow out, then another call the next day with another tire problem. The tires were only 2 years old. They pull a fifthwheel with a Freightliner set up to pull it. They also had a blow out on the tow vehicle.
The unit sits for many months of the year and I wonder if this has anything to do with it, I have begun to jack my trailer to turn the wheels by hand and then return them
to the ground in a different position. I don't know if I am doing any good. What do you think.

 
Personally I think tires have to be evaluated like anything else, with a little common sense, practicality and risk evaluation. All this helps you to find that ?sweet spot? for your comfort level.
If I was selling tires I would have no reason to argue with someone that insisted on changing tires at 5 or 6 years but it does not always make it a needed replacement. There are some trailer and smaller size tires that will not live beyond 5 years because of the way they are overloaded and abused. There are also some OTR tires like 1100x20 and 22.5?s that are well over 10 yrs old without problems. Some farm equipment tires are 15+ yrs. Bottom line is most of this info is useless to me and has no bearing on my tire life except for mfr recommendation and my specific application (mileage, speed & loading practices).
My 22.5?s will be replaced summer of their 8th year or there about as this is my sweet spot. Mfr says up to 10 but considering the possible damage on a MH compared to an OTR and my application, 8+ seems reasonable. This includes using a TPMS and at least annual inspection. If you ?set em and forget em? you are asking for trouble. If they were a smaller size or different application then the timeframe needs to be different.
The only blowout on a MH I have ever had was front right tire on the freeway and the tire was brand new. App. 400 miles into our first trip.
Everything has an expiration date, including us. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best. JMHO.
 
i know shops normally do it........but make sure they change the valves .......and make sure they are the hi pressure heavy duty ones as well....!!!!
 
I continue to believe that most of the age-based tire problems are taking place in hot climates.

Blowouts and early failure aren't the problem in, say, Wyoming or Colorado that they are in Arizona or Texas.  The chemistry supports that.  The aging reactions slow way down in cold weather.
 
Interesting Jammer. In a prior life we made extensive use of the Arrhenius equation while conducting accelerated aging tests. I don't know anything about the chemistry associated with tires, but Arrhenius might apply. Doubling the reaction reaction rate for every 10oC would surely make a huge difference in the aging rate vs temperature.

Any chemical engineers here with knowledge of the chemistry of tires?

Playing devil's advocate ...  if Arrhenius were to apply, how does one explain the fact that tires on vehicles driven daily don't appear to experience the same degradation?
 
I continue to believe that most of the age-based tire problems are taking place in hot climates.
Click to expand...

Heat certainly is an enemy of rubber in general, but tires generate most of their own heat through friction on pavement. Of course, the tires sheds heat less when the ambient temp is high and the road surface blistering, so that probably exacerbates the problem. And soft tires generate much more heat than properly inflated ones.

Hotter climates also tend to have more/stronger direct sunlight, and that may be a factor too (ultraviolet damage). Certainly those who cover their tires religiously would tell you that.

If you say that aging problems occur only in hot climates, it leads to the conclusion that more northern climates won't have any tire aging problems. I don't think we have any reliable evidence of that either. Maybe aging is slower in cooler climates, but there are so many other factors it is impossible to separate the salient ones based on mere anecdotal evidence.
 
Now, to be sure, I think that prudence dictates that tires be removed from service at some point due to age, if they are being used in an application where their failure could pose safety problems.  Anything moving at highway speeds would qualify.

I'm not a chemical engineer and can't comment in a quantitative and analytical fashion on the effects of temperature on the deterioration of the elastomers and other components used in tires.  But you can see a lot just by watching, or something like that.

Blowouts are now vanishingly rare on the Minnesota highways.  I've been an eyewitness to two, ever, one a semi whose appearance led me to conclude that maintenance may not have been a high priority for its operator, and the other on a grain cart that was overloaded by at least a factor of two (happened in front of my house, it was my neighbor's and I gave him a spare I happened to have which he inflated with great caution to about 1.5x the max PSI since it was smaller than the one that had failed and even more overloaded.  Got him home though).  While driving I sometimes see the tread of a retread that has come off but it's unusual to see the widely scattered debris from a blowout.

And on this forums and others, I don't see northerners complaining about tires problems.  It's people from the sun belt who do.  People here run ST tires at 80mph on their snowmobile trailers and boat trailers in ignorance or contempt for the sidewall marking showing a max speed of 65 mph.

I don't believe the 6-year life is based in science, but rather has been promulgated by tire companies as a means of thwarting product liability litigation.  Maybe 10 years is a reasonable general limit.  But I sure see a lot of ag equipment and boat trailers that are run well to the point where there is visible age deterioration of the sidewall without failures.  20 years in many cases, more than that if the equipment is kept inside and out of the sun.

Anecdotal, sure, I know.  Too bad the failure data isn't published.
 
Tom said:
Playing devil's advocate ...  if Arrhenius were to apply, how does one explain the fact that tires on vehicles driven daily don't appear to experience the same degradation?
Click to expand...

I have heard mixed claims on this.  I would think that tires driven daily still degrade at the same rate, but as I noted upthread, it is more typically a process that takes around ten years rather than six, even in temperate climes.

In most cases the tire will be a candidate for replacement due to treadwear, after being driven daily for ten years.
 
...."saying what we think gives us a wider conversational range than saying what we know". __ Cullen Hightower
 
I don't believe the 6-year life is based in science, but rather has been promulgated by tire companies as a means of thwarting product liability litigation.
Click to expand...
The tire companies generally insist that tires will last longer than that, e.g. Michelin specifically says a 10 year life is attainable. They also say that tires don't age in their distribution warehouses, which are supposedly temperature controlled and out of the sun.

But I agree there is no science in the 6 year number. Or the 5 or the 7 either. The tire companies have not spent a dime to prove or disprove tire aging characteristics because it simply isn't an issue for the vast majority of their customers.  For everybody except  RVers, tires last long enough to wear out and that's all they - and most of their customers - care about.
 
I just today happened across a lengthy and informative thread at another forum where a couple of tire engineers weigh in on this subject:

http://forums.woodalls.com/Index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/25786030/srt/pa/pging/1/page/1

The poster suggests a 6-year life in hot climates and a 10-year life in cold climates.

For everybody except  RVers, tires last long enough to wear out and that's all they - and most of their customers - care about.
Click to expand...

While that is certainly true for most automotive and truck applications, there are a number of other specialty vehicles that are also affected:
- Fire and rescue, particularly at smaller departments
- Grain trucks and other agricultural equipment used on the highway, but only seasonally.
- The many trailers used only occasionally, concession (food service), boat trailers used only for seasonal storage, construction trailers, etc.

 
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