How Old, Are Your New Tires

So you just bought new tires for your car or motorcycle, just how new are they? More than likely they have been setting around for some time before you bought them. You can find the date of manufacture by looking for the DOT info on the sidewall. On car and truck tires this is usually found on the backside, crawl under and behind the tire to check it out. On motorcycle tires the DOT info and date can be on ether side. All tires are dated, it doesn’t matter where they are made.

With that being said lets take a look and my old tire I just replaced on my panhead. In the pic you can see W182<, this translates to manufactured the 18th week of 1992, in other words I was running down the road (sometimes fast) on rubber that was 16 years old. I replaced it because I was running low on tread.

In this thumbnail pic is a shot of my new back tire, looking close just after the DOT info is W2304. Translated, made the 23rd week of 2004. This tire is 4 years old, coming from a dealer that had to sprcial order it for me.

In this shot is the front tire that I am running, look at the date tag, 1300. This tire was made the 13th week of 2000, 8 years old. The DOT recommends you replace your tires when 6 years old or older.

ABC news show 20/20 just aired a very good story on tires and how manufactures date them. Follow this link to watch this news story at ABC News 20/20 , and you will learn something.