What is the failure mode for aged tires?

[studegary]

Henry Honda has new tires, but now he pulls to the right. How could Costco screw up the alignment installing tires? Pressures are roughly even on all four.

I fixed the slow leak on the 60 Lark... by replacing it with TWO faster/bigger slow leaks. Hmmm....

It MAY not be an alignment issue. It MAY be a defective tire, for example with tread not in alignment with the tire. This type of thing usually happens with cheap tires or seconds.

[sweetolbob]

Just swap the tires side to side and see if it changes the pull. If so, bad tire.

[56GH]

All this latest concern about age of tires has me... concerned. So it turns out that every tire on every car I have is more than 5 years old, some more that 12 years old. Some even older than that, but those are on cars that are not being driven.

What is the failure mode of aged tires? I drive my 60 Lark at 65 or so and my 99 Honda Accord at 75-80. I never (almost never) hit potholes and my tires stay balanced for 60 thousand miles at least on the Honda. That's how easy I am on tires.



I'm starting to get nervous about freeway driving, even in the Honda.

How will the tires fail? When will they fail? There are 45 thousand miles on them now, but I have to check the date code. Will one of them suddenly deflate? Will they burst and splatter me against an SUV or a guard rail? Will they start to go out of balance? Will they just get slow leaks?

Does anyone know?

Roy:

I bought a 1956 Golden Hawk in 1995 and did a restoration in 1996, including (4) 215R75-15 radials and Chrysler 5-1/2" wide rims. I never put that many miles on the car in the twenty years I owned it. In 2001 I was traveling through Orlando, FL, on Route 4 at about 55 mph to a zone meet.

I gradually noticed a sort of thumping sound in the rear of the car but I couldn't pull over right away because of the lack of a shoulder wide enough. Suddenly, the right rear tire blew apart. When I pulled over, the steel wires had separated from the tire carcass in a huge mess, pushed my lower fender area upward and bent my fender opening trim. The spinning wires during the blow-out left pock-marks all over the bottom of the fender area and I had to peel the wires off the tire and rim. What a mess!

Fortunately, my wife and I were not hurt and the insurance took care of the body work and painting of the fender. I never did find the fender brace though!

Strangely, after I found a place to pull over, a big oil tanker 16-wheeler pulled up in back of me and out stepped Luther Jackson, a fellow 56J owner, who stayed with us until we got the spare on the car and continued on!

I don't take any chances with old radials any more, even if they're only 5-6 years old!

[IMG]Fender Trim.jpg[/IMG]

[Jeff_H]

Henry Honda has new tires, but now he pulls to the right. How could Costco screw up the alignment installing tires? Pressures are roughly even on all four.

Yup, could be a bad tire unless they actually did do something with the alignment? In the late 80s, I had a set of 4 new uniroyals put on my '79 mustang. I could barely keep it between the lines on the way home from the tire shop. The worn out tires I went in with were fine. Took the car to a different shop to have it checked out and they told me it had some bad tires on it and rotated them around so it would at least drive in a straight line... I took the info from that shop back to the tire shop and got them to replace 2 (if I recall right) of the tires.

Those tires ended up being pretty crappy and wore out quickly. I also got a sidewall bulge in one of them that was a pain. I was 3 states away in college and the uniroyal dealer there I took it to told me I had to take the bad tire to the original shop to get my warrantee claim. So, I had to fork over non-existent $$ for the replacement tire, AND stuff that bad tire in my '79 mustang along with all my other stuff from college the next time I was back home a couple months later. Trust me, that was one overpacked mustang!

[jackb]

great stove hugger talk.... pass the jug..!

[Buzzard]

RadioRoy,
You experienced what our industry called a "RADIAL PULL". It was always on cheaper tires and simply put, the belts were not installed correctly and thus by not being aligned internally, caused the rotation of the tire to tend towards one side or the other. Also your "bulge" was most likely a poorly manufactured belt splice. These two trends are always on cheaper brands, not typical of Michelin, Toyo, Yokohama, Bridgestone, Goodyear and such. You get what you pay for and in this age of "off shore" products, be wary of cheap as there is a reason why they sell for less. jackb, I'll take a slug!
Bill

[56GH]

As long as it has Mr. Daniel's magical elixir in it!

[Buzzard]

Bill, you are obviously a connoisseur when it comes to the "good stuff". Down the road from Daniels is a little distillery called George Dickel. Their motto is "If you know Jack, then you don't know Dick". I really like it, but it all boils down to personal taste.
Happy tasting.
Cheers, Bill

[48skyliner]

"Also your "bulge" was most likely a poorly manufactured belt splice. These two trends are always on cheaper brands, not typical of Michelin, Toyo, Yokohama, Bridgestone, Goodyear and such. You get what you pay for and in this age of "off shore" products, be wary of cheap as there is a reason why they sell for less. "

I have owned many cars since I bought my 47 Cadillac in 1957, started driving on radials in about 1962 when I got my first sports car. I have had three sets of tires that had tread separation,all in the 1980s, in each case at fairly low mileage, and all three sets were Michelin. They never came apart, just got very lumpy and had bad vibration. About 25 years ago I started taking the advice of my tire expert at Discount Tire and ran Yokohama and Toyo tires on all my vehicles, never have had a problem with staying in balance, driving straight, traction on wet pavement, and pretty good tire life for very reasonable prices. I was always impressed with how little balance weight they required, an indication of very good manufacture quality control.

I never had really high performance tires before, but I wanted some for my Skyline powered RX-7. I ended up with the Japanese Falken AZENIS RT615K, which is an amazing tire, stops as well on wet pavement as any previous tire I have had on dry pavement. If you find this hard to believe, I did also. The rubber is very soft and I think I will get about 12-14,000 miles on them, but I only drive it about 2,000 miles a year. I will put new tires on my Studebaker this summer, probably the same tires. Both cars have very powerful four wheel disc brakes and good suspension which can handle the high forces. My philosophy is that the tires only have to stop you really well one time to pay for a new set of tires.

Falken has started making some tires in the U.S. in 2016, but the Azenis is their premier tire and is made in Japan. I would not recommend these tires for any stock suspension Studebaker.


Regarding Bourbon connoisseurs I was in the fancy Orchid lounge of the St Francis hotel with my father a few years ago (1956) and he ordered a Jack Daniels Black Label (back in the day, that was 100 proof, the good stuff) and when the waiter brought it he took one sip and said "take this back to the bar tender, I think he made a mistake and gave me the green label". The waiter came back and said "the bar tender sends his apologies - he ran out of the Black label and didn't think anyone would be sophisticated enough to notice the difference. Your drinks are on the house". All these years I have wondered if he looked across the room and saw the guy pouring the Green Label. I never asked. Must have made a big impression on me - I remember it as if it happened last week.

My selective memory has always plagued me. When I was in college I could tell you what dash number of Pratt and Whitney R2800 was in an F8F Bearcat, but I could never remember the solution to the differential equation.

[56GH]

"Also your "bulge" was most likely a poorly manufactured belt splice. These two trends are always on cheaper brands, not typical of Michelin, Toyo, Yokohama, Bridgestone, Goodyear and such. You get what you pay for and in this age of "off shore" products, be wary of cheap as there is a reason why they sell for less. "

I have owned many cars since I bought my 47 Cadillac in 1957, started driving on radials in about 1962 when I got my first sports car. I have had three sets of tires that had tread separation,all in the 1980s, in each case at fairly low mileage, and all three sets were Michelin. They never came apart, just got very lumpy and had bad vibration. About 25 years ago I started taking the advice of my tire expert at Discount Tire and ran Yokohama and Toyo tires on all my vehicles, never have had a problem with staying in balance, driving straight, traction on wet pavement, and pretty good tire life for very reasonable prices. I was always impressed with how little balance weight they required, an indication of very good manufacture quality control.

I never had really high performance tires before, but I wanted some for my Skyline powered RX-7. I ended up with the Japanese Falken AZENIS RT615K, which is an amazing tire, stops as well on wet pavement as any previous tire I have had on dry pavement. If you find this hard to believe, I did also. The rubber is very soft and I think I will get about 12-14,000 miles on them, but I only drive it about 2,000 miles a year. I will put new tires on my Studebaker this summer, probably the same tires. Both cars have very powerful four wheel disc brakes and good suspension which can handle the high forces. My philosophy is that the tires only have to stop you really well one time to pay for a new set of tires.

Falken has started making some tires in the U.S. in 2016, but the Azenis is their premier tire and is made in Japan. I would not recommend these tires for any stock suspension Studebaker.


Regarding Bourbon connoisseurs I was in the fancy Orchid lounge of the St Francis hotel with my father a few years ago (1956) and he ordered a Jack Daniels Black Label (back in the day, that was 100 proof, the good stuff) and when the waiter brought it he took one sip and said "take this back to the bar tender, I think he made a mistake and gave me the green label". The waiter came back and said "the bar tender sends his apologies - he ran out of the Black label and didn't think anyone would be sophisticated enough to notice the difference. Your drinks are on the house". All these years I have wondered if he looked across the room and saw the guy pouring the Green Label. I never asked. Must have made a big impression on me - I remember it as if it happened last week.

My selective memory has always plagued me. When I was in college I could tell you what dash number of Pratt and Whitney R2800 was in an F8F Bearcat, but I could never remember the solution to the differential equation.

Actually, there have been very few bourbons that I didn't like! My taste is not that discriminating! I do like Woodford Reserve, though. Technically, Jack Daniels is not a bourbon, it's really a "Tennessee whiskey" but the name is instantly recognizable so that's why I mentioned it.

in 1989 we bought a 1953 Champion Regal coupe from someone in Nashville, TN. We flew to Nashville and drove the Champ back home to Massachusetts where we were living at the time. On the way we made a "pilgrimage" to the Jack Daniels distillery in Lynchburg, TN. We didn't realize it at the time, but the county where the distillery is located was a "dry" county, so no sampling! Consarn it!

[sweetolbob]

I've always been a fan of JD Black and consumed same until a couple of years ago. I've now switched to Evan Williams Black which is similar and much less expensive.

I have several friends that enjoy Bourbons like Knob Creek etc. for the nuances but I just can't get into them. I guess I need a bourbon that grabs you but the throat and says "There's nothing better than me".

Bob

[avanti-hawk]

I was driving a 1959 Pontiac Bonneville this last Monday here in wintery Ontario and the right front tire blew out while doing 55MPH after I hit a minor bump in the frost heaved pavement. After changing it and checking the other 3 is when I noticed they were all cracked in the sidewalls. Called a flatbed and had her towed

[GTHawk]

The born on date of manufacture is posted on the tire wall. Seven years is the max when it comes to safety. If there's no born on date on the tire you should have chucked it years ago. Better safe than sorry. I change my tires on all my vehicles every five years no matter how good they seen to appear.

6 years ago I spent over $1000.00 for some great looking Diamond back tires. Now after 600 miles on them I'm supposed to throw them away because they make them out of such crappy material??? If I were to do that, the cost per mile for these tires would be $1.67.

If that truly is the case then we should all go on line and buy the cheapest tires we can find or go to Walmart and find a $50.00 tire. So lets all save money and forget about appearance. We're CASOs so can we all really afford to do this?

[jnormanh]

If that truly is the case then we should all go on line and buy the cheapest tires we can find or go to Walmart and find a $50.00 tire. So lets all save money and forget about appearance. We're CASOs so can we all really afford to do this?

Cheap tires? That's what I've been using for the past 30 years. Wal*Mart, Discount tire, whatever is cheapest. I've never had a tire failure, They turn and stop like any other tires, and last as many miles.

Regardless of the advertising hoopla, tires are low tech things made of rubber and cord. No secrets there.

Your money, your choice.

[mbstude]

6 years ago I spent over $1000.00 for some great looking Diamond back tires. Now after 600 miles on them I'm supposed to throw them away because they make them out of such crappy material??? If I were to do that, the cost per mile for these tires would be $1.67.

100 miles a year? Sounds like you need to drive your car more.