Tire age

[Steve_S]

Can anyone tell me which organizations have limits on tire age?

 

[aeronca65t]

This is a good question and I have not seen it formally addressed in the amatuer race clubs I've run with.
It does not seem to be mentioned in the SCCA-GCR (other than a general statement about the tech inspector having a right to fail the car for any additional reason not mentioned)

SCCA-GCR
https://www.scca.com/documents/Club Rules/GCR2008.pdf

I'm sure if a tire is spotted during tech inspection with age-cracks, it would be rejected, but tires are often swapped after tech is done.

This may be less of an issue with autocross events.

There are "tire treatments" (such as "Formula V") that are supposed to rejuvinate old tires, but this suff is not allowed by the SCCA and most other road race groups. Might be used in autocross to dress up old tires though.

I'm sure NASCAR and F1 don't need to worry about a question like this, but I've seen some old race cars show up at some events with age-cracks and obvious dry rot. Sometimes, if it rains, some folks will put on their old "rolling around" street tires as rain tires....and some of these don't get teched since it's done on-the-fly.

I had a student show up at a race school at Pocono and two tires were so badly age-cracked that I wouldn't get in the car until he changed them....I guess the tech inspector missed them (I ended up giving him one of my spares and so did another racer).

Speaking personally, none of my race tires are older than four years and that's probably pushing it (and I "bag" them during the off season).

 

[Steve_S]

Thanks Nial. Reason I ask is that I just ordered some street-legal track tires from a reputable source, and it turns out they are 6-7 years old. They are in perfect condition, no age cracking etc, nice and black and the rubber feels just right. I'm sure they won't last long on the road anyway, but I'm still concerned about paying full price for older tires. There are no more of these tires in the country or I would have insisted on fresher ones. If I decide to return them, I'm looking for a good argument other than "I personally don't like 6-year-old tires" so I can get my shipping charges back.

I'll probably just use them since they won't last as long as a full street tire anyway.

 

[Michael Oritt]

Steve--

IMHO your having been sold 6-year old tires without a disclosure is unacceptable and borders on fraudulent misrepresentation. Concealment of a material fact is as much a misrepresentation as is a false statement. Tires begin to age as soon as they are made and the compound has undoubtedly changed even while sitting on the shelf.

Get your money back.

 

[Steve_S]

I told him up front that I didn't want several year old tires, and he replied that these wouldn't be the freshest set in the world but they were the only set he had. So while he did tell me they weren't brand new, he didn't tell me that they were in fact 6-7 years old. My dilemna is that I may not be able to get another set for quite some time, if at all. I was very lucky to find this set.

 

[Eric]

Tire Rack's take on tire age:

https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=138

Basically, 6 years is the limit, and DOT competition tires age much more quickly than that. I wouldn't be happy being sold 6 year old tires of any sort, never mind competition tires.