Summers Here - And old tires feel the heat too!

Summer Heat Kills Old Tires

We've had a nice cool spring this year, but the heat is definitely on the way - it is supposed to get into the low 90's today, and the road can easily heat up to 160 degrees.

This is a major factor for older tires; as the rubber degrades, heat will have a big impact on tires that are older than 10 years, and sometimes less than that.

This can result in simple leaks, broken belts and blowouts, even if the tire has a lot of tread left - as rubber ages it gets more brittle, and at a certain point the tire will fail.

Inspect Your Tires!

This is a good time of year to inspect your tires to see if they are in good shape - pay attention to the sidewall and the treads, and look for small cracks in the rubber, especially where the tread meets the sidewall, and on the tread part of the tire look for cracks in between the treadblocks. The tire below is about 12 years old, and you can see how badly the rubber has degraded

How Old Are My Tires?

Every tire sold in the US has a date code of when the tire is manufactured - in the picture below, you will see a small oval pressed into the rubber with 4 digits - this is the code to tell you when the tire was manufactured.

You can see on this tire the number 1616 in the small oval. In these date codes, the first two numbers are the week and the second two the year, so this tire would have been made in the 16th week of 2016 - you can also see how smooth the rubber is compared with the tire pictured above. 

If the numbers were 0809 it would have been manufactured in the 8th week of 2009.

So, take a look at your tires before it starts getting to hot, and if you need new tires in Maiden give us a call - Maiden Tire & Wheel is your local connection for tires, tire and wheel packages and more!