Tire age? Danger after 7 years?

i drove my 91 miata with the original tires until 2002 and 36,000 miles. no prolemo.

 

My semi-educated guess is that after 7 or 8 years you should treat it like a space saver spare i.e. if you use it as a road tire, drive gently and get a newer tire back on the ground as soon as practical.

Personally, I would keep a spare as a spare as long as it looked decent without any serious cracking or checking.

 

I've never replaced a spare, and we've held on to one car for maybe 11 years. I would say the spare looked pretty much pristine. I don't think they age as much, protected from sunlight, stresses, etcetera. For the regular tires I've heard both 5 years and 6 years.

With our mileage treadlife is usually the governing factor, ie: we run out of tread every 4 years or so. Have a look at them close up: check for tiny cracking patterns. For a real close look call on a myopic friend if needed

 

Hey! I resemble that remark!

 

I had a set of tires on my S-10 that were 8 years old and had 90,000 some miles on them.

I still had decent tread but, I also had a lot of cracks showing up. I'd say after 5 years, Start looking at them really good.

 

Tires tend to either:
A. Wear out the tread from high mileage
or
B. Experience cracking, usually on the sidewalls, from sun and ozone exposure.

If the tire is in the spare tire well and protected, it shouldn't degrade significantly for many years. If the car is sitting outside but isn't driven much, the four tires exposed to the sun will degrade. You'll see people who own RVs put tire covers on when the vehicle is in storage; that's why.

 

Me too: always called on to read the ingredient lists on tiny bottles, thread needles. Don't think I'd ever go for laser correction, I hear long-sightedness is one of the downsides.

 

Aging will do this regardless.

 

That is what I have heard too, that is the correction accelerates middle aged and older eye problems down the road

I can read microscopic print, my mom and various other women always get me to thread needles, but please don't point out the teeny mouse at the end of the driveway because I'll never see it

 

If you are near sighted to begin with it won't. You range of focus decreases and moves towards whatever you max natural focal distance comfortable distance was. As I approach 70, I need glasses to pass a driving test but my vision is good at distance of 14 to 20 inches. That's common for a person who was near sighted.

A person who had good vision and didn't need glasses will tend toward distance vision as they approach geezerdom, as you said.

 

sounds like 'if you can't see your tires, you don't need to change them!'

 

Glad to hear that you still have good vision at 14 inches, it suggests mine won't be getting much worse. I'm nearsighted, and as a teenager could focus to the end of my nose. In the last few years, that limit has moved away about 10 inches, and a lot of fine print and electronic component markings are no longer readable. If feels like geezerdom is fast approaching.

 

I don't think I would trust the safety of my family to old tires. Think of it this way, if a set of tires costs $1000, is that too much money to spend to prevent the loss of a family member should you have a blowout and crash?

Also, I only wish I had the time to list all the examples of people I know that have wound up paying a lot of money in the end because they tried to save a few dollars up front.

 

There are plenty of folks out there who spend money on flash stuff, but get cheap and count pennies over mundane things like tires that could save their life

 

Cheer up! It gets worse!

If you get your cataracts removed, your ability to focus will be removed or greatly diminished too. So you will not be able to see clearly at any distance -- whether near or far or in-between -- without the implanting of intraocular lens and/or the wearing of glasses.

 

It is worse in some than others, but yeah its a fact of life.