Introduction #
Tire Age there may be debate about how often to change tires, but knowing the tire age is critical in any decision factor. The author chooses to replace tires (tyres) every 8-10 years regardless of how many miles they have done. People may say there’s plenty of tread left. Maybe the tires have been protected from UV by being inside, and the topics go on. The fact is that you cannot tell a tire’s condition simply by looking at it and what you can see. I’ve also read enough stories of people having blow outs. Or people ending upside down because of blow outs. The cause is running 70 MPH on an interstate for extended period on tires that were 20 years old but “looked great with plenty of tread”.
Reading The Tire Age #
Any tire manufactured after year 2000 should have a code on the tire side wall as part of the TIN (Tire Identification Number) maybe also known as the DOT/Serial Number of the tire. The format is:
WWYY – WW = week of manufacture – YY = Year of manufacture
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-V/part-574/section-574.5
3 Digit Date Codes #
If you’re seeing only 3 digits then the tire is very old and manufactured before the year 2000. The fist 2 digits will still be the week of manufacture. The last digit will be the year. Which decade that was from, not easy to be sure. Could be 70’s, 80’s or 90’s. See example below of a tire from 1977 with a date code of 077.
Current Example #
Early 2000’s Example #
This is an example of a tire from the early 2000’s. This is not installed on any vehicle!
Very Old – 1970’s Example #
I’m not even sure what the standards were back in the 1970’s but this is the code found on the original Pirelli Radial that was fitted to my 1977 MGB Roadster as new from the factory.
Other Materials #
I’ve built this website and spent time on the knowledge base to bring together a lot of information I have collected from around the internet. The intent is making it easy to find rather than having to know about and have skills with search engine query terms to get what you were looking for. Please make use of the knowledge base.
