Stockpiling tyres

[Banzai]

When new, regular road tyres have a shelf life of about 7 or 8 years. R comps have a shelf life of 2 or 3 years depending on brand and compound. Independent importers like the Temple of Chrome have been known to import out of date R comps for sale cheap.

There was a shit fight in the US a couple of years ago because tire store were selling 10 year old stock and people were crashing their cars.

[Jim]

a mate paints on watered down PVA wood glue over the tread on his slicks. crazy fucker recons it's like driving on ice for the first lap but he gets a year and a half out of one set of slicks on his supersprinter.

[ASSAIL]

as long as your using them within 3 years of the date of manufacture (its stamped on the side of the tyre in week/year format) theyll be fine

[Captain_Slow]

They'd probably sit around for 18 months at my usual wear rate.

By the time you got to put them on your car, cars would no longer use tyres but would have a Mr Fusion unit and hover conversion. :D

Wow...who'd have thought the world would change so much by mid-2011!

[Captiva Fan]

I asked a Tyre Dude the same question, 'cos the ones on Project Big Red Car are getting to probably 8-9 years of old & have barely been used. He said manufacturers have a 5 year warranty (he runs a Bridgestone shop so maybe he thinks only/mostly in Bridgestone), but that you should be able to keep tyres a helluva lot longer by looking after them properly with the right dressing ... but he was talking about tyres with regular (minimal) use, rather than just sitting around.

There was a shit fight in the US a couple of years ago because (a) tire stores were selling 10 year old stock and (b) people were crashing their cars.

I'd love to know if the only link between (a) & (b) was Wolfram & Hart?

[ironhorse]

Yeah nah not worth the effort . Tyres and wheels take up an annoying amount of space in your garage ,plus there are heaps of options for commodores when the time actually comes to replace them .

[GSRman]

You would be better off going to a different tire anyway.. the replacement tires on my coon are over $600 as well.. but the toyo super sporty whizzers that are on it now (which are fricken heaps better) were about $260/each?

[edo]

a mate paints on watered down PVA wood glue over the tread on his slicks. crazy fucker recons it's like driving on ice for the first lap but he gets a year and a half out of one set of slicks on his supersprinter.

This is not good...apart from the obvious, slicks die due to the number of heat cycles not wear. Sprints are a cunt on slicks because you get them hot 6 times in a day...2 sprint days & they are hardly worn but the compound is rooted.

[NISMOgemini]

for quality tires.. i would avoid leaving them out in the sun for any period of time..

[oxy]

How long can you reasonably leave a set of tyres 'stockpiled' (fitted to rims, let's say, and out of direct sunlight/weather) before they go off?

You probably need to leave them in the sun for a couple of years, and then soak them in a mixture of oil and bleach for a few days. They'll go off then.

Assuming by "going off", you mean producing lots of smoke

[Dave]

those retreads on the vk went off

(not in the smokey way)

[Captain_Slow]

Thanks for the replies - as I said, reckon I'll do nothing and look for something else next time I need tyres.

[Madhatr]

Its the UV light in the sun that degrades the rubber, its the heat that actually starts to leech oils out of the tyre. So basically, they are fine till they start to harden and crack up.

Very few manufacturers have a warranty of 5 years, well, saying a warranty isnt really right as such because they generally say a warranty is good for the life of the tyre, its just that companies like bridgestone reccomend replacing the tyre at 5 years regardless.

[chartreusehj]

uv light and ozone

so dont be storing them next to your photocopier and tanning booth

[Mike the headless chicken]

"Life of tyre" is generally understood to be 5 years. Any tyre that's over 5 years old we will not warrant, regardless of what's happened to it, as long as there isn't a massive gap between manufacture date and purchase date.

As long as they're kept out of the heat/sun, they should be ok to sit there for 18 months but don't expect them to perform as well as a new tyre.