Experience with tires older than five years

[Tom and Patty]

Wow, I love this subject! Not ony AGE ages a tire. How hot the tire has gotten ages a tire also, and at 5-6 years, that tire has had plenty of opportunities to get hot. I check my tires daily, but that doesn't catch the nail I picked up leaving the rest stop.

I agree with Bob and the others...replace them, it is cheap insurance. Besides have you checked into a service call on I-40 (or elsewhere) in the middle of the night? How about the price of the tire?

Potholes, nail repairs done improperly, over inflated, the list goes on .

[Digital Boy]

"Besides have you checked into a service call on I-40 (or elsewhere) in the middle of the night?"

A prudent RVer will have a road service contract like Good Sam's ERS to defray the cost of that service call.

Besides, I think that most RVer's are tucked away in bed during the middle of the night. Only a daring few night owls are on the road.

[Tom and Patty]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Digital Boy:
"Besides have you checked into a service call on I-40 (or elsewhere) in the middle of the night?"

A prudent RVer will have a road service contract like Good Sam's ERS to defray the cost of that service call.

Besides, I think that most RVer's are tucked away in bed during the middle of the night. Only a daring few night owls are on the road. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

That would be us. "St Louis or Bust."

[Bikeboy57]

Thanks to everybody who took the time to reply. As I stated when I opened this can of worms, I was looking for data.

There are just too many variables to predict what is going to happen. Were the tires ever run underpressure, did the owner hit a big pothole, and many other factors that cannot be quantified.

Also, there is no magic timer that goes off when a tire reaches it's fifth birthday. It's just that the probability of a failure goes up with age and the combination of all the factors that go into the equation.

I guess the engineer in me wants something tangible to make the decision on. Sorry, but's that the way my head works.

I agree that $3000 is a small price to pay for the insurance and the inconvenience of a tire problem. However, spending the money is not a gurantee that you will not have a problem. Careful monitoring is the most active thing that one can do to avoid an issue.

So that brings me back to the mental spin cycle. I am carefully watching the tires. All signs are positive with NO visible signs of ageing.

One of the reasons I polled this forum and not a more general one was that I felt that most Newmars come from the factory with sufficient tires for the weight. In my case, an H range tire was over kill for the coach weight. As I searched other forums for instances of tire problems and ageing, I found a lot of Class C's and gassers. Not so much with the DP's. I made a casual correlation with the "undertired" coaches and the incidents.

Anyway, sorry to start a fuss. This topic draws almost as much emotion as whether to use Transsynd or not.

Next time, to start a fuss, I think I'll just say that NASCAR is rigged just like "wrasslin"

Thanks again for the info and the input.

["007"]

Just to add to this mix of info my tires are steel belted that sit during winter months on wood or plastic sheets to keep seperated from ground contact so moisture does not effect the steel belts from rusting.
You can not see the steel belts until the blowout to see if they are rusted.
Has anyone seen rusted steel belts if they had a blow out ?

[Trehcub]

$3000.00 is cheap compared to the cost of a repair to the motorhome when doing 65 and a tire blows. I know you are only responable for the deductible but the time spent sitting on the side of the road waiting on road service and the overpriced no name tire they bring out to replace the one that came apart. The repair cost to my coach with a right front blowout was almost $10,000.00.

[Larry3570]

Hi Hondo122,

Absoloutely no disrespect taken. The whole tire age thing is vague IMHO. The mfrs are not gonna say a age like "15 years" because if they do and someone gets killed 'cause of a crash at "only 13 years" they'll get sued. So they pick a age that they figure is gonna be so low it can't possibly be a factor. Can't really blame 'em.

But when they say there's no life limit on the little tires on my aircraft that (1) always sit in the sun, (2) get slammed onto the ground with a few tons on them and instantly go from 0 to 90 MPH (in my case), (3) could really cause a problem with a blowout on landing it just makes me scratch my bald little head.....

I am very observant of tire pressure and use a Pressure Pro system which would likely give me warning in most cases. But also I wonder how many of the "out-of-the-blue" blowouts resulted from low pressure? Before the Pressure Pro, I didn't check all 6 every day. How many of us truthfully do?

All that said, I'll probably get new rubber before long...why screw around?

[KenSherwin]

One more tire pressure and age story. In 1976, I built a car with a fiberglass body on a chassis I designed and I thought antique 16" spoke wheels would look neat. This car sits in a carport about 8 months per year because it has no top. A conveertable that won't convert. Anyway, it still has the ORIGINAL tires, running at around 10 psi.

PS&gt; I don't treat my grown-up vehicles that way.

[Ecker]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Bikeboy57:
Thanks to everybody who took the time to reply. As I stated when I opened this can of worms, I was looking for data.

</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I was the President of a rubber manufacturing company making solid tires so my experience is not totally relevant. I can say that the biggest negative for RV tires is the long periods of not being used. It is the flexing of the rubber that moves the rubber additives to the surface to be expelled and keeps them fresh. So, arguably a high mileage RV with older tires is safer than a low mileage RV with older tires. The tires will look better in terms of unused tread , etc but that is fools gold.

[NeilV]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by KenSherwin:
One more tire pressure and age story. In 1976, I built a car with a fiberglass body on a chassis I designed and I thought antique 16" spoke wheels would look neat. This car sits in a carport about 8 months per year because it has no top. A conveertable that won't convert. Anyway, it still has the ORIGINAL tires, running at around 10 psi.

PS&gt; I don't treat my grown-up vehicles that way. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

My 1952 Bolens has the original Firestones on it but it does not see highway use. We have had to change the motor but not the tires.

[tom wilson]

i run mine for 8 years and have had no blowouts yet. g159 goodyears running max pressure stamped on sidewall. 40 % of tread left when they were changed. 1996 kountrystar.

[Bikeboy57]

Thanks again for all your input. In the end it came down to an emotional decision, not a data based one.

I thought the best summation of the situation was that a tire with high miles drvien regulary was more probabley safer than a low mileage tire driven infrequently.

Although the data indicates that perhaps one or two years of use safely remain, the impact of a tire problem is severe enough to err on the extreme side of conservatism.

Baby gets new XZA3's on Tuesday.

[melvonnar]

5 years hmmmm some tires set in tire dealers for years (odd sizes) do they throw these tires out after 5 years ? I don't think so. Are these tires safe? good question. I worked for a garage when I was in school, I know some of the tires were over 5 years old. something to think about, the biggist problem with tires short life is underpressure; that will kill a tire quicker than anything. the spare tire on my toad is 25 years old; never been on the ground; do I throw it out? I don't think so.