These 10 year old tires look pretty good I think - Opinions?

The tires on my 20 year old Cavalier look great, even at 11 years old. Issue is that getting them up to speed they don’t feel as solid as they used to. Granted, Discount Tire no longer takes tires off a car if they are 9 years or older.

Going to need to take them off the car, and have a local tire shop put a new set on…..
 
The tires on my 20 year old Cavalier look great, even at 11 years old. Issue is that getting them up to speed they don’t feel as solid as they used to. Granted, Discount Tire no longer takes tires off a car if they are 9 years or older.

Going to need to take them off the car, and have a local tire shop put a new set on…..
Why would Discount Tire have that policy? Don’t they want to help people have safer brand new tires? Don’t they want to make money? 🤔
 
Why the rear ?

Ive head that suggested many times over the years.

Do you want to catch a car sudeenly understeering, or suddenly oversteering? For understeer, you get off the gas and grip will be avaialable to steer again, with oversteer you have to ADD gas on a FWD (still not an issue if you are aware). Good luck with a RWD, you lost grip due to not enough friction and you need friction to add speed and move weight to the rear and thus add grip to recover.
 
The tires on my 20 year old Cavalier look great, even at 11 years old. Issue is that getting them up to speed they don’t feel as solid as they used to. Granted, Discount Tire no longer takes tires off a car if they are 9 years or older.

Going to need to take them off the car, and have a local tire shop put a new set on…..
Discount tire will not "Service" a tire more than 10 years old. Meaning they will not patch or rotate it. They will take it off and throw it away, and install a new one.

If someone at Discount told you this - call corporate and ask or go to a different location.
 
Why would Discount Tire have that policy? Don’t they want to help people have safer brand new tires? Don’t they want to make money? 🤔
The tires could deteriorate and micro particles might penetrate the flat rate tech's nitrile gloves. A real hot mess waiting to erupt
 
Discount tire will not "Service" a tire more than 10 years old. Meaning they will not patch or rotate it. They will take it off and throw it away, and install a new one.....
Thank you for correcting that point, "service" being the operative word. That's their policy. They likely may 'recommend" new tires at/after 6 years, but in my experience that is a recommendation only.

As for topic, at 10 years best tire practice says one should be looking to replace no matter the "appearance."
 
Thank you for correcting that point, "service" being the operative word. That's their policy. They likely may 'recommend" new tires at/after 6 years, but in my experience that is a recommendation only.

As for topic, at 10 years best tire practice says one should be looking to replace no matter the "appearance."
Again I point out, this forum has a well above median income. Many here can afford to “throw out” things and buy new. This applies to so many things that have been discussed—batteries, oil, tires, cars. This doesn’t mean it’s the only way to do things. For example? There are other countries where they still would use a tire that looks good and is 121 mos old. They even air up tires that were driven on flat. They also plug not patch.

Why I don’t buy there’s any science behind this throw away appearance means nothing, one entity says toss and replace after 6 years and another entity 10 years. Big difference. 10 years is 66.67% longer than 6 years.

We are all adults and should take info from the web with a grain of salt, then make an informed decision. My recommendation is to consider driving the way it is and save the money.

Don’t believe me I was just at an indie where a tech asked the advisor if he could have the tires he had just removed from a Lexus, and was told let me ask the customer he didn’t say one way or another if he wanted them returned.
 
Pics below. These are the rear tires are on my 2014 Accord. The fronts are 2020 year tires and these rear ones are the originals from the factory (dated 2014). The car has spent most of its life garaged in a tropical climate and has 22,000 miles on the odometer right now.

If you zoom in on the first pic you can make out some consistent hairline cracking on the outside (left side of the tire as pictured) edge of the tread blocks. If you zoom in on the 2nd pic the insides don't have any cracking. It's hard to see but there is some very light cracking in the gaps between the treads, but nothing major. I didn't take a picture of the sidewalls but they don't have any cracking. FWIW the front tires look more or less pristine.

To me these tires look good enough to run for another year or two which is about the likely tread life of the tires, especially considering these are the rear tires on a front wheel drive vehicle, but I am far from an expert. Also my traction on wet roads seems to be fine. Am I crazy?


View attachment 254636View attachment 254637
Almost 2x expired. Even if they had 0 miles they are no good.
 
Here are my thoughts:

Long Version: Barry's Tire Tech: Tire Aging and Weather Cracking (New June, 2022)

Short Version: Cracking isn't the best indicator of the condition of the tire. That's because not only is the part we should be most interested in deep inside the tire, but some tire manufacturers use a crack resistant rubber on the outside, which gives a false impression.

That's why most tire manufacturers give an age limit and they do it from the date of application, not the date of manufacture. Unfortunately most folks don't remember when the tires were applied. Further, tires don't age very quickly before they are applied because there are waxes and antioxidants added to the rubber that form a barrier. These flake off when the tire is put into service.

And to make matters worse: Aging is highly dependent on temperature, meaning tires operating in - say - Phoenix age much faster than tires operating in - say - Minneapolis. So you will hear different lengths of time depending on whether the source is concerned about the low end or high end. The range is from 6 to 10 years. It's a "One size doesn't fit all!" situation.
 
I'm going to use the comment that always pops up by those on the "Chinese Tire Threads".

What is your life worth?
I'd rather run brand new Mile Star tires than one's ten years old.

+1

Last year I had a young coworker who passed away because she had a blowout in a rear tire, causing her to lose control at highway speeds and hit a semi parked on the side of the road. If my tires are over 5-6 years old and show signs of cracking I replace them, I certainly wouldn't run 10 year old tires with dry rot.
 
Again I point out, this forum has a well above median income. Many here can afford to “throw out” things and buy new. This applies to so many things that have been discussed—batteries, oil, tires, cars. This doesn’t mean it’s the only way to do things. For example? There are other countries where they still would use a tire that looks good and is 121 mos old. They even air up tires that were driven on flat. They also plug not patch.

Why I don’t buy there’s any science behind this throw away appearance means nothing, one entity says toss and replace after 6 years and another entity 10 years. Big difference. 10 years is 66.67% longer than 6 years.

We are all adults and should take info from the web with a grain of salt, then make an informed decision. My recommendation is to consider driving the way it is and save the money.

Don’t believe me I was just at an indie where a tech asked the advisor if he could have the tires he had just removed from a Lexus, and was told let me ask the customer he didn’t say one way or another if he wanted them returned.
Driving is not a right! It is privilege. We trust science to make tires, and anyone with little bit of basic knowledge knows rubber deteriorates.
Income, high, low, middle, it is actually irrelevant. We pay for gas, registration, insurance. This is not only about driver and their families. It is about other people. They are not at fault that someone can’t get their act together and it is not responsible.
The financial oblivion that might result as a consequence of running old tires is really dark.
 
Discount tire will not "Service" a tire more than 10 years old. Meaning they will not patch or rotate it. They will take it off and throw it away, and install a new one.

If someone at Discount told you this - call corporate and ask or go to a different location.
This is Discount tire's "bad policy" for the customer in my experience. In 2022, they installed 4 Michelin mvmx tires on my 08 Accord. 1x was 2 years old, 1x was 1 year old, 2x was 6 months old. I have dedicated snow tires/wheels so I won't wear them out before 10 years.
 
Why would Discount Tire have that policy? Don’t they want to help people have safer brand new tires? Don’t they want to make money? 🤔

It’s brand new within the last few months, I was told. I’m guessing a lawsuit made that change for them………
 
Discount tire will not "Service" a tire more than 10 years old. Meaning they will not patch or rotate it. They will take it off and throw it away, and install a new one.

If someone at Discount told you this - call corporate and ask or go to a different location.

That’s what I thought as well. They actually changed my last set of tires for it at 9 year old tires.

It was mentioned that they have a younger crew in my area (many new folks) so they pretty much don’t touch them.

The tires on my Cavalier right now (General Altimaxt RTs) seem to be “okay” as the car has spent most of that time in a garage. Considering what I want to do …..
 
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