Tire Failure: A Hidden Danger

Think your new tires are safe? Shockingly, that may not be the case. As ABC News recently reported, there’s a hidden danger: tires that look perfectly safe can be dangerously old and dried out with a serious danger of catastrophic tread separation, even if the tire has no miles on it.

Fatal accidents have been caused by tires that, regardless of tread-depth and appearance, may actually be much older than they appear to be, sitting on store shelves for years before being sold. One man, who lost his only son to a fatal accident found that the tires he believed he’d bought new were actually nine years old, three years past the age when, according to experts, tires start to become dangerously aged.

Auto makers have tried to warn drivers for years about aged tires, even asking the federal government to impose a 6 year expiration date for tires, but that plea has fallen upon deaf ears, resisted by the US tire industry and ignored by the US government. In fact, the US tire industry rebukes the argument that tires dangerously deteriorate after 6 years, insisting that there is no scientific proof that age is an issue in tire safety and performance.

It’s challenging for car owners to even decode the confusing jumble of numbers that show a tire’s actual age. Located at the end of a string of letters and numbers, the tire’s age is a three or four digit number. For instance, 231 means that tire was produced in the 23rd week of 1991, while 414 signifies the 41st week of 1994…and even when one does know how to read the code, up until last year, it has often been imprinted on the inward side of the tire, so that in order to read it, it’s necessary to crawl underneath the car with a flashlight.  

Even more alarming is the fact that ABC News’ 20/20 along with other affiliate stations’ investigations, discovered that tires 6 years old and older are being sold as new at outlets such as Sears, Walmart and  Good Year dealerships. In fact, 20/20’s undercover investigation in NJ found several Sears stores selling tires up to 12 years old – a tire that one store employee admitted was dangerous and should only be used as a spare. Another Sears store told undercover ABC investigators that a 12 year old tire was perfectly safe…don’t trust the safety of your loved ones to a tire that may or may not be as safe as it appears to be;  make sure that you ask your tire dealer to view the true age of the tire you’re buying, or bring your vehicle to one of our Royal Gate service centers and let us make sure that your tires aren’t dangerously aged…your life, and the lives of your passengers may depend on it.