Printable View
I had a set of 4 tyres with 90% tread on them on a caravan I bought that lasted 800k's before 2 of them blew out and wreaked a mudguard and spat on the van in the process.Quote:
Originally Posted by superquag
When I took the van in for a new set of tyres I was told the the ones on the van were 9 years old, So regardless of how good the tyres look age DOES matter.
Were they Australian manufactured tyres? - or "overseas" ? [bigwhistle]
I remember when Uniroyal and Esso branded steel belted radials were made in South Australia.
We bought a caravan (our first) recently. Eleven years old, one fastidious owner, mint condition throughout. My boss had it made to his specs, but now he was upgrading. Original tyres on it. He brought it up to my place and I had the wheels off it that afternoon and down to my tyre guy the next morning for new rubber. Just not worth the risk, plus old tyres just don't grip as well and I really didn't want it to overtake me. The old tyres looked like new... from a couple of metres away. Get up really close and the sidewalls were heavily crazed. The spare matches but has been under a cover and never seen light. It's still like new so I didn't replace that. I took it in for a second opinion and the tyre guys confirmed it was fine. And from experience I know they heavily lean towards the safer option.
Having said that I have a set of muddies that go on the Disco for playtime that are about 7 years old. They get regularly checked and still look and feel good so they still get used.
I think an arbitrary age limit isn't sensible if you apply some common sense. There are twenty year old tyres that are fine and five year old ones that are dangerous.
The majority of the degradation/ageing process is inside the rubber/steel. Not the outside.
I would never trust a tyre over 5 years old. There a NO safe 10+ year old tyres.
They don’t age well, and a hand print sized grip on the road is all we get.