JHZR2
Staff member
I wouldn’t be alarmist, but I’d also replace them. I would be hesitant to drive too fast on them just in case something happened.
Older Tires...Perfect Shape...What to do?
- Thread starter AdmiralYoda
- Start date
Believe it or not these are becoming collectibles. Obviously not a classic muscle car or German import....these old Toyotas just don't exist anymore. The salt ate most of them and time took the rest. Ones in good condition regularly sell for $20k+ on Bringatrailer.com and the best examples in original condition can exceed $30k.
And to answer other comments.... yes I do drive on the highway occasionally, usually maintaining 65mph on flat ground. The 110hp (when new) 22RE engine is bullet proof but not a performance engine. 75mph downhill is the top speed lol.
Picture from this summer:
This isn't the bias ply tire days. Truck tires should give you plenty of warning before just exploding.
Ten years is considered the maximum age for tires used or not. If there was ever an accident the insurance company might look at anything that could get them out of a payout. It's not worth chancing it.
Yeah it's bonkers what pristine ones bring on bat and cars and bids now. This was an Autopian question recently. What 90's early 2000s vehicles will go from obscure daily transportation to collectors status.
Which is why I'm here asking
I've heard this 10 year rule of thumb before (sometimes I've even heard 6 years). Is this just a general consensus/opinion or is this an actual law? If the tires had legal tread and the vehicle passed its yearly inspection...how would 99.9% of the population know to throw out there seemingly perfect condition tires to get new ones? The insurance company could probably use the same logic on brake pads or anything else. Food for thought!
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Here are a few examples that I was able to find.Which is why I'm here asking
If the tires had legal thread and the vehicle passed its yearly inspection...how would 99.9% of the population know to throw out there seemingly perfect condition tires to get new ones? The insurance company could probably use the same logic on brake pads or anything else. Food for thought!
How dangerous are old tires? Here are a few examples:
- In 2006, an 11-year-old boy was killed when his family's SUV rolled over on a California highway after the left rear tire's tread separated. An investigation revealed that a tire service center had installed the SUV's 12-year-old spare tire during a visit to replace the rear tires.
- In 2008, the owner of a 1998 Ford Explorer in Georgia needed a new tire for his SUV and bought a used one. When he was driving two weeks later, the tread suddenly separated from the tire. The driver lost control and hit a motorcycle, killing its rider. An analysis of the used tire revealed that it was nearly 10 years old.
- In 2013, actor Paul Walker died in an accident in a Porsche Carrera GT, one of the highest-performance models in the automaker's history. An investigation determined that the Porsche was driving on 9-year-old tires and traveling at speeds between 80 and 93 mph when the driver, Roger Rodas, lost control and collided with a power pole and several trees. Rodas was also killed.
In theory you might be a okay but you won't really know the Actual degradation without cutting them open and testing them.
Which is why I'm here asking
If the tires had legal thread and the vehicle passed its yearly inspection...how would 99.9% of the population know to throw out there seemingly perfect condition tires to get new ones? The insurance company could probably use the same logic on brake pads or anything else. Food for thought!
Brake pads aren't flexing constantly, nor are they made of materials that deteriorate due to age, like a tire made of dissimilar materials. You have an actual (retired) tire engineer on this thread advising you it's not a wise idea, and what the consequences can be.
I get it. I have tires age out, long before they will wear out on a couple vehicles. I've seen or know of ( Cop friend who responded to many accidents where tires delaminated, usually due to being old) enough tires which came apart due to age, that it's not worth the risk to me to run old tires.
I takes lots of risks, fast cars and motorcycles... but I will not run old, hard tires on them.
It would be a shame to see that pristine 1st gen damaged due to a tire tearing up the sheetmetal after a tire comes apart. Not to mention could happen to you and your passengers, if you lose control.
Good luck
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Looking at that picture shows that the loss of hight from a blowout would be considerable, as the rims are rather small and there's a lot of sidewall between the rims and the road. This alone should be an incentive to get rid of those old tires. A sudden drop of height like that would make it hard for even the best driver to maintain control at any decent speed.
And besides loss of directional control, that tall vehicle would easily rool over, and not just once. The carnage to humans in vehicles that do multiple rools is a life-changer. With seatbelts on most live, but often they spend months in a hospital and are never 100 percent recovered from it. This is no joke, rool-overs are devastating.
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Cracks between the treads are the correct concern. If there re cracks between the treads, you should replace them as those cracks can cause a serious problem coming apart and blowing out or worse. Tread separation is the most concerning and dangerous blowout you can have. I replaced the tires on my 1970 Chevy pickup last year because although the tires were over 15 years old and had very few miles, the tread was good, the sidewalls were good but when I noticed cracks in between the tread I bought new ones. My tire guy said it was definitely time to replace.
If your going to drive them in desert heat for long trips, I would definitely replace them. If just tootling around in town at low speed, then I'd use them until they started showing external signs of age.
@JimPghPA Agreed. These are 31" tires on 15" rims. A roll-over would not be fun....and is the reason I'm asking these questions! 
@TPK No cracks, not one. Still soft-ish and flexible. Plenty of traction. These tires (and 4Runner since I fixed it up) have been in the garage their whole life.
@ripcord No desert lol...not in New England. Just warm weather cruises with the occasional trip to the parents, 50 miles each way on the highway. Maybe a couple hundred mile trip up into the mountains of NH/VT but that is pushing it.
The 4Runner is put away in the garage for the winter now. In the spring I'll start tire shopping
@TPK No cracks, not one. Still soft-ish and flexible. Plenty of traction. These tires (and 4Runner since I fixed it up) have been in the garage their whole life.
@ripcord No desert lol...not in New England. Just warm weather cruises with the occasional trip to the parents, 50 miles each way on the highway. Maybe a couple hundred mile trip up into the mountains of NH/VT but that is pushing it.
The 4Runner is put away in the garage for the winter now. In the spring I'll start tire shopping
That sounds good as you and I live in the same area, approximately, in Massachusetts, I better understand your usage. My truck was, also garaged all its life but I changed mine out because a couple friends of mine and I started driving our vehicles on "cruises" two or more days a week all through New England many days were longer than just short trips. Many more miles put down than you have said, so, just keep an eye on them and watch for cracking between the treads.@JimPghPA Agreed. These are 31" tires on 15" rims. A roll-over would not be fun....and is the reason I'm asking these questions!
@TPK No cracks, not one. Still soft-ish and flexible. Plenty of traction. These tires (and 4Runner since I fixed it up) have been in the garage their whole life.
@ripcord No desert lol...not in New England. Just warm weather cruises with the occasional trip to the parents, 50 miles each way on the highway. Maybe a couple hundred mile trip up into the mountains of NH/VT but that is pushing it.
The 4Runner is put away in the garage for the winter now. In the spring I'll start tire shopping
Thanks for the reply.
You've educated me.
I had no idea that these old girls in good nick, like yours is, were appreciating and coming into there own as special interest machines.
All the more reason to put some newer rubber under her.
@fdcg27 and others...I feel obligated to share the story behind this 4Runner.
My father is a recently retired mechanic and had his own shop for about 40 years. He grabbed this 4Runner for me in 1999 to be a winter beater and to get me back and forth from college and got it for almost free since the body was rotting. I think it was like $400 or something like that and I had to work it off lol. Typical Toyota rot at the time...the rear quarter panels and the front fenders had holes big enough to put your hand through. The floor, frame and interior were mint.
In 2000 I bought new Toyota OEM quarter panels and fenders for it with the intent of fixing it up...then college got in the way, then work, etc. It sat at his shop parked behind other lost projects and parts vehicles.
In 2011 he was clearing some of the junk he had accumulated over the years and the 4Runner was going to the junkyard for scrap. I climbed under it to get some chains on it, since by now it had sunken into the parking lot and had flat tires....and I noticed the frame and floor were still perfect.
He didn't believe me and told me to drag it into the shop and put it on a lift. Sure enough....perfect. So I decided to take the entire 4Runner apart, bagged and tagged and put it all back together. We still had the OEM body panels which were no longer available and were worth big $$$ by now. Had it painted, drove it for about 5k miles and parked it in the garage.... then kids took over my attention.
And here we are today with the same tires from 2012-ish and the kids are old enough to enjoy it!
My father is a recently retired mechanic and had his own shop for about 40 years. He grabbed this 4Runner for me in 1999 to be a winter beater and to get me back and forth from college and got it for almost free since the body was rotting. I think it was like $400 or something like that and I had to work it off lol. Typical Toyota rot at the time...the rear quarter panels and the front fenders had holes big enough to put your hand through. The floor, frame and interior were mint.
In 2000 I bought new Toyota OEM quarter panels and fenders for it with the intent of fixing it up...then college got in the way, then work, etc. It sat at his shop parked behind other lost projects and parts vehicles.
In 2011 he was clearing some of the junk he had accumulated over the years and the 4Runner was going to the junkyard for scrap. I climbed under it to get some chains on it, since by now it had sunken into the parking lot and had flat tires....and I noticed the frame and floor were still perfect.
He didn't believe me and told me to drag it into the shop and put it on a lift. Sure enough....perfect. So I decided to take the entire 4Runner apart, bagged and tagged and put it all back together. We still had the OEM body panels which were no longer available and were worth big $$$ by now. Had it painted, drove it for about 5k miles and parked it in the garage.... then kids took over my attention.
And here we are today with the same tires from 2012-ish and the kids are old enough to enjoy it!
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Not sure who told you that.
If tire age was that important, it'd be part of a pre-trip inspection.
Pity there isn't an easy way of doing a shore measurement of the rubber to understand how much they have hardened and have a cut off point where if they exceed a certain shore value they should be replaced. There's still the internal structure to worry about though. I once cut a 26 year old tyre off a motorcycle wheel because it was too stiff to dismount. Still had plenty of tread depth and the internal structure seemed sound when I sectioned it but I wasn't about to ride on it.
Id be inclined to agree with those who are saying replace them. Even if they look great and show no signs of degrading, that doenst mean that they arent degrading or degrading in a place that you cant see.
Especially in an older vehicle that isnt exactly replacable, its just cheap insurance to replace them. If you have a blow out and get into a wreck with that 4Runner, in addition to the crying shame of wrecking such an iconic 4x4, insurance is probably going to just total it. It would be a shame to see something like that happen over something as trivia as tires.
Especially in an older vehicle that isnt exactly replacable, its just cheap insurance to replace them. If you have a blow out and get into a wreck with that 4Runner, in addition to the crying shame of wrecking such an iconic 4x4, insurance is probably going to just total it. It would be a shame to see something like that happen over something as trivia as tires.
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Hmmm interesting. I have a 2014 Accord. The front tires are 2020, the rears are 2014 original tires. The rears look good to me with no cracks and the car was garaged and lives in a warm climate (Hawaii). Seeing as it's front wheel drive is it still urgent to replace them?
