Are your Tyres tired?
Following up on recent news items concerning “old tyres” and fatal Road Traffic Accidents, I thought it would be interesting to see how to age tyres.
Particularly useful if you ever consider buying slightly worn tyres, or even testing the phrase “AS New”, or the age of the tyres on your potential purchase.
I am sure many may know this, but it is a simple failsafe to age tyres. All modern tyres must have the week and year of manufacture stamped in to the mould, along with the Manufacturing Plant code.
Is is clearly on display as is the tyre size, speed rating, and in most of our cases, a Camping tyre. (built to put up with standing around and not deforming the tyre so that when you drive off it thumps a bit until it heats up and tries to regain its original shape)
In this picture above is a group of the information. Nearly always in this group of three , but the only all figure slot ( the right hand end) is the one we want. 0513 This means the 05th week of 2013. Thus 6 years old
In this picture you can see its the same factory, but now the last code is 2712. This one is week 27 of 2012.
Nearly 7 years old.
The real point here is that if it only has 3 figures in this same spot, it means its a BEFORE 2000 tyre and now 19 yrs old!
Hope some of this helps.
Chris
