Home Forums Gear Hunting Trucks and Four-Wheel Drives Acceptable age of truck tires?

So I've got an older Jeep Wrangler at my house right now that I'm fixing up. Not really driving it much, except around the neighborhood. The tires are some nice 33x12.50/15 Firestone Destination MTs with maybe 7,000-8,000 miles on them and no appreciable wear. However, they are about 13-14 years old. This jeep has done a lot of sitting in storage over the last 10 years. One tire is showing some very slight spiderweb cracking on the inner sidewall, while all have some hairline cracking around the edges of the tread blocks. Considering how squirrely a lifted Wrangler would be if a blowout occurred at highway speeds, I'm thinking I need to ditch these things before doing much highway driving. Seems like a shame, as they look practically new otherwise and they're $220 tires.....

So am I right in thinking that 13 years is getting old, regardless of mileage?

If you value your ass at more than a six pack over $900;00 I'd replace them, sell them to some one for off road use.

I'm inclined to agree.....

Good idea on the offroad use. Bet somebody would want them for a camp truck that doensn't see paved roads.

Shelf life of a passenger car tire is 6yrs. I had a 7yo Michelen LTX come apart at the sidewall.

Once they start cracking/dry rotting, they are done. The will come apart once hot. I've done this... If it was low speed off road use and you didn't mind the hassle of an untimely blowout, you could run them until the casings shed their treads or you tore a sidewall.

+1

Sunlight, UV rays, breaks down the rubber. In northern climates or if the car is stored in a garage you can get more years out of them. The number I see most often is about 6 years, but under the right conditions I might keep them longer.

In this case I think I'd set them go.

Those don't sound like "$220.00 tires" to me. I'd chit can them. It's a shame you don't drive that jeep more. In fact, letting a vehicle sit for long periods of time like that is more than just hard on the tires. It's hard on mechanical parts and rubber seals etc...

New ones are $220...haha, but I get what you mean.

And the Jeep wasn't always mine. If it had been, I'd have been driving it instead of parking it in a barn for months/years at a time.

A lot of guys forget the age of their trailer tires. A 10 yo tire with only 1000 miles is just waiting to blow on the highway.

If they have cracks in them, get rid of them. Tires are cheaper than your life.

Yup. Changed them on my camper last year for that very reason.

I drive truck for a living. Nothing pleasures m e more than seeing A-holes on their phone on holiday weekends with a blown boat/travel/car trailer tire. When haul ANY car trailer i don't leave without my mini floor jack and a battery operated impact. I blew a tire on a car trailer at the base of Mont Eagle a few years ago and was back sailing in 15 minutes. I have a friend in trailer repair and he charges $1'000's to people who don't ever have their bearings re-packed and burn spindles. I re-pack trailer bearings yearly and as said before never leave the house without a spare, floor jack and impact. It's your own damn fault if u don't maintain your trailers and their tires. "Hell i been backing this boat trailer in the water for 5 years and nothing has happened yet!" runs through my mind a lot when I see them. All u gotta do to make tires live is seriously put something like Black magic/Armor All on them or the like and keep them out of the sun (garage or cover them with anything) and they will live forever. let me tell you I believe it's a rule that if your family is sitting on the side of the road and u can't fix a tire issue you need to turn in your man card and I mean officially for a while. I couldn't imagine looking my wife in the face and telling her " I dunno"..... Over a tire issue on a trailer.

It damned well should be.

very good advise there....

yeah I always carry a floor jack in my trailer on trips, and always have a pair of spares...even if just to get ya to the tire shop to replace it with a trailer tire.

being cheap on tires, is sort of like George Carlin's take on Motorcycle helmets....

Buy a $10 helmet if you have a $10 head....

Another vote for chit canning them. I had the opposite problem, let my son drive my truck last year commuting to college and in 9 months and ~10k miles he wore a new set of tires to the casing. I know, set of tires is way cheaper than out of state college but I've never seen a set of tires worn so fast.

Any truck that can wear out a set of tires in 10k needs a thorough going over to find out why. That's not normal and something caused it.

Manufacturers claim that tires have a shelf life of 7 years.

I had a 10 year old tire throw rubber on me last year. It did $1000 worth of damage to the fender well before it came off. I had to drive 15 miles on the still inflated casing to find someone with a cutting torch. Who ever rotated the tires didn't put my padlock key to the spare back where it was suppose to be.

Heck, we are still using a homemade trailer my grandfather built using trailer house axles and the tires are at least 30 years old plus. It rarely sees pavement but they do still roll.