How old are your tires

Fresh tire owner with real world experience...ME! Just bought new 14" tires for my 1980 308 GTSi. Won't say what brand, but they are correct for the car. My "old" tires, were Michelin XWX. Once again, so old that I won't say fearing a tar and feathering from the brethren. Took a hundred mile ride yesterday...beautiful dry sunny day and then...POOF...nasty thunderstorm.

It was like night and day...the new tires felt solid...I did quick lane change maneuvers..speeds over 100mph...and then had to experience buckets of rain...so bad I pulled over because of lack of vision.

Bottom line...since owning the car this was my first drive on new design technology tires. My previous being Michelin XWX's. No comparison! Get new tires at least every 5 years...As you all know, your 14" tire choices are limited

 

33, 1, 0, 6, 1 years old on my five vintage cars.

Roger Rodas lost the Carrere GT due to cold tires, not due to old tires. A very stupid error for such a skilful driver. R.I.P.

ciao

 

Now ask if would anyone use a condom that's 5yrs old or older?

Old tires can result in deadly accidents, why risk it?

 

Disagree, but I agree with the quoted article. Rodas should have known better than to drive hard on rock hard aged 9 year old tires, especially since the CGT is known for tricky handling.

My 84 308 QV has 12 year old Pirellis on it when I bought it in 2013. The very first thing I did that week was to put on new tires. I've always believed in changing out summer tires older than 6 years, no matter how much tread was left. For winter tires, I change them after 4 winters - the drop off in grip at that age is significant and very noticeable.

 

My mondi has 16 year old tires that are original to the 360 wheels on it. 348 about 2 years, esprit 5 years, DD's 2-3.

As for the CGT accident...in this day and age seems like every single person on this planet is looking to make their mistakes someone else fault. Was a bonehead move in a car with too much power and a driver with not enough talent... not a novel story

 

Three sports cars: 4 year old tires, 5 year old tires and 3 year old tires.

Two cars have RE11s which wear quickly so have natural "replacement indicators". (I also like Extreme Performance Summer tires because of the safety they give me regarding stopping distance.) The rears are wearing much more quickly on the 308 than the fronts and I may just replace the rears only when they are finally due. Thoughts? That would put the fronts at about 7 years old the next time I replace all 4 tires.

When I bought the 308, it was shod with 12 year old tires. The lack of traction and inconsistency between front and rear was frightening. I had some terrible traction surprises. It was my first experience with old tires. I will never forget it.

 

Hey Brian! Hope you're well!

4 performance cars - tires are 12 ('67 GTO), 8 (328), 1 (V8 Vantage), and 0 (BMW track car, uses 3 sets of tires/year)

I think next spring I will replace the GTO's tires, then start looking for new ones for the Ferrari.

 

2006

 

Aww, come on! How can you leave that hanging there like that? We need to know!

I'd love to see side by side tests of 14" van tyres, XWX and everything in between. These magazines that keep churning out the same old rehashed 308 stories should do something useful like this. One day, maybe the collective might of this forum will get toghether an honest side by side appraisal.

 

change tires every 5 years

change batteries every 3 years

change oils every 2 years


never had a problem for the last 13 years

but do, what ever you want

 

Old tires can be frightening. I had my share of old wintertyres (old being 5 years) and squirrely summer tyres to the point of an exploding Michelin X at 120kph - admittedly, that one was really old (certainly over 20 years), old Michelins have a bad name in this regard, probably had a lot of UV exposure etc. And yes I was being irresponsible at the time.

But as for grip at age, there is a huge, huge disparity between brands, tyre types, and the interaction with the cars they are fitted to. I have an 1970 Jaguar XJ S1 with 15 year old Semperit tyres that just grips and grips (tested at more reasonable speeds, but still very impressive). My BMW 2800CS of the same vintage just would not tolerate that, believe me - I tried. And those Jaguar tyres now look too old to me to use so I don't.

You cannot just say a tyre of 6 years old is trash and throw it out. I have driven many cars on young to very old tyres and in my experience, if it just remotely looks or feels bad, it is time to change them. But that can be at 15 years.
Is that a good rule? obviously not.
A good rule could be that if you demand things from your car and/or you are not a skilful driver, I would seek replacement between 6 and 10 years of age for summer tyres, later depending on what you can handle. Winter, probably much sooner. You just really need to know your car and its limits, including the tyres it then resides on.
For collector cars, 15 maybe even 20 years can be acceptable if there is no UV exposure, some regularity in usage and you can recognize and handle the relative risk.

Oh, and as for that article stating that even a Prius could take that corner at 90 if it were on new tyres, what a dumb comparison sorry to say. As far as I know the CGT does not have stability control, and a HUGE amount of power... and lacking TC in such a situation, there are risks. Don't go for a blast in an overpowered car without getting familiar with it first. Old tyres are then in my view a contributing factor but certainly not the cause.

 

Michael,

why do you replace batteries every three years? There's no safety issue with batteries and I never ever had a battery failing earlier than six years.
I let batteries die but change oil every year.
Tyres I replace after 6 to 7 years if not worn. Except the rear ones on the 308. They are worn much earlier.

Best
Martin

 

I just can't believe that some of you are still defending old tires! Cut it out! It's silly! Buy new tires after five years...PLEASE! With sugar on top...

You change your oil...correct? Tires are typically made out of styrene-butadiene (SBR) rubber. This chemical comes from oil processing/refining....so tires indirectly come from oil! Change them!

 

What car is that one with 33yrs. old tyres??

Best
Martin

 

A museum car that I drive no more than 30 miles per year just at very low speed. They are the OEM and will stay there until they will explode.

Ciao

 

wahahahaha !

you forgot the cambelts !

 

Chaya: It just depends on your definition of old - and when is it too old.
Just been through a little riot on oil in the 456 section, not going there again.

 

2005 on my 328 GTS, 2006 on my AMG Mercedes, 2004 on my Porsche, and 2011 on my BMW.

 

Yo dude! Sent you an email.

 

I had a nice chat with one of the Bridgestone factory reps at the "Legends of the Autobahn" concours in Monterey this year.

I told him how much I liked their RE11s, but complained that they were quite a bit heavier than comparable Michelin or Pirelli Extreme Performance Summer tires. He said that Bridgestone has been very conservative in their tire construction and perhaps overly conservative. They are currently designing lighter tire constructions.

I'm not sure if and how tire design affects grip, but the conversation was interesting nonetheless and made me wonder what "conservative" meant relative to tire construction.

 

I got RE11s earlier this year and found them to be a great tire. Bought them moderately used and mounted to 16" Superformance wheels. They absolutely transformed the driving experience vs. the old TRX tires I had on there. Plus the combo looks great on a 308.

2009 date code on the tires, BTW.

 

I disagree, as Rodas already drove that car with old tires and nothing happened. He wanted to impress crowd at Paul Walker shop: he pushed the car after a long stop (more than two hours) so the tires were completely cold and crashed just 300 meters from the shop. Something like that happend to me with my Countach, with fresh Pirelli Pzero after a long stop in a restaurant for lunch. I wanted to impress the crowd and photographers there were around (it was an important car meeting) so I went out from the restaurant on the main road (a 90 degree turn) in first gear an pushed a bit the gas pedal: I did that many times before, but that time, with the cold tires, the car did a turn around like it was on wet. What a shame... More the tires are high performance, more is importany they are warmed up, as an high performance tire is like on wet or even ice when is cold.

Trust me: a racing driver like Rodas should have known that.

ciao

 

My last car ( 328 ) had old tire from around 10 or 12 years old when I bought it.
It drive pretty well but when I changed the tyres, I was surprised because I feel having another car.