Tire Age and Racing....Tire age and your daily Driver.
Ok, so there you are at your local race shop. Your there buying tires for this weeks race, and you ask if the tires are fresh? Most of the time the crew chief is the one getting the tires. In Nascar there are tire specialists who know anything there is to know about tires, freshness, size the secret stamping codes on the side walls.
What is Freshness? How does it effect me? These are some of the questions your asking yourself, or you heard someone else saying it when they buy their tires.
Freshness is a reference of new manufacture tires. Here is the biggest scoop on tires. So read this really carefully, and when you buy tires for your daily driven car or race car, be armed with knowledge that can save your life.....Yes I did say "Save your life".
As a tire ages the polyester and rubber of the tire starts breaking down, which can lead to tire failure. Every tire you buy, whether for driving down the interstate, or on the race track, no matter dirt or asphalt are manufactured for a specific hardness or softness for traction and wearability for these reasons the composition of the compounds vary. When we use tires for racing more than likely they are not designed for highway use and are stanped so. These tires normally leak down and go flat after a few days. this is caused from the compounds that are used to create the make up of the tire. Sunlight breaks down the compounds used for making the tires, heat and also air can start the compounds break down.
When you go to a garage or tire specialty store and buy tires for your car you don't know how old the tires are. You think you are getting new tires and you should be able to put 30k miles on them with out a problem. Rotate them every couple of months for wear and your good to go right?.... Wrong! The new tires you just purchased could very well be 3 to 6 years old, they have just been in storage awaiting someone to buy them. There have been tires found to be 12 years old, that were being sold as new tires. The majority of the world with the exeption of the United States warns customers not to use tires on their vehicles that are 6 or more years old. The results can be casastrophic.
There are date codes you can look at when you buy tires and don't be afraid of looking at each tire to determin its manufacture date. if the tire is older than a year or not made the current year you purchase them...DONT BUY them.
The date codes can be found at the end of the DOT bubble that is melted to the inside of the tire. The DOT markings tell you of the load rating, and pressure recommendations, at the end of the long line is a 3 or 4 digit number. That is where you tell how old the tire is.
If the tire has a three digit assignment it was made prior to the year 2000. Example 329= 32 week of 1999
if the tire has a four digit assignment it was made after 1999. Example 4102= 41 week of 2002
So with this knowledge you have, go out and buy new tires not old new tires that may fail you.on the track or going to the grocery store.
Click here to see the ABC News Broadcast This is a broadcast from ABC News about accidents involving old tires being sold as new.
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