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MG TD TF 1500 - Tires

Time to ask the age-old question again, do I need new tires? Just read an article in Haggerty's Driver magazine on Jay Leno who suffered a tire blowout on 20-year-old tires. Looking to replace mine, they were put on in 2007. Just came from my general mechanic, he did a thorough inspection of them and said there was no reason to. The rubber feels good, there's no cracking, not much where on them, they look perfect. Do I replace them anyway?
Part two, they're on the original wire wheels. What precautions need to be taken when balancing them? I've read articles where your everyday mechanic with Modern Tire balancers are unable to do this properly unless they have special cones made for wire wheels. Any advice?
TR Hammond

Assuming these are radials, 16 year old tires are dangerous and with due respect, your mechanic has no idea what he's talking about. Bias Ply don't generally explode when they get old like radials do, they just get hard and lose traction. Radials will suddenly and explosively fail, sometimes even while sitting still. No matter how good they look, the interior construction is breaking down from the day they are installed.

To balance a wire wheel correctly, it has to be mounted on the conical surfaces (both inner AND outer). Most tire shops have only flat mounts, which usually don't work well. Sometimes you get lucky, but most often not. You can buy a set of cone adapters and take them to the shop with you, or if you have an old school (not a big brand) tire shop nearby then they may have the adapters already. If you buy your own, you will need to know the size of the tire shop's balancing machine spindle.

An even better way to balance is to have them done on the car. This accounts for any hub inaccuracies and will give the best result. Very few shops still do this. Also, you have to mark the wheel and always put it back on the same hub and line up the marks. No more tire rotating (which these cars don't usually need anyway).
Steve Simmons

I can attest to Steve’s remark about radial tires exploding. I had a spare tire mounting on the front of my car hauler. It had never been on the ground. Probably 10 yrs old at the time when it spontaneously exploded on the rack. Luckily no one got hurt. I immediately replaced all my trailer tires. I didn’t need one coming apart on the highway and tearing up my equipment.

W A Chasser

Hagerty just did a good article done by Jay Leno on the issue of old tires.

He said he needs about 1200 tires to change out his cars.

https://www.hagerty.com/media/opinion/jay-leno-needs-about-1200-tires/
Bruce Cunha

People always think the expensive part of owning so many cars is insurance and gas. No, insurance is dirt cheap, and you don't use any more gas with ten cars as you do with one since you only drive one at a time. Where the big money is spent is in tires and batteries. I've spent a couple thousand already this year, and I still need 10 more tires and two batteries.
Steve Simmons

So how do you determine exactly when it's time to replace old tires? Is it strictly a matter of how old they are? If so, just how how old is "old"? Does it matter how hard and how many miles the car has been driven? Does it make any difference if the car has always been garaged or if it has always been left out in the sun and weather? Are there other factors to consider?

Thanks for any guidance you can offer. The tires on my car, Nexens by the way, are about nine yers old but only have a few thousand miles on them and the car is always parked in my garage.

Joe
Joe Olson

I read the Jay Leno article that's what made me really start to think about my tires. They don't see a lot of sun, or a lot of road use, but they are 16 years old..
TR Hammond

I think most manufacturers agree on 5-6 years.
W A Chasser

When I bought my TD the tires looked like new. I drive on them for a couple of years before I checked the mfg date. They were 15 yrs old. I had a planned Wisconsin to Texas road trip and planned on changing them when I got back. 2/3 of the way back from Texas I stopped for the night in a small town. I was chatting on the phone with my sister when I noticed something irregular about one of the rear tires. I ended the call and strolled over to the car to inspect. There was a chunk of rubber the area of a man’s fist missing from the tread. The cord of the tire in that entire area was exposed. I never felt a thing driving and had just done a spirited drive down hilly winding roads. I had driven long enough the edges of the missing rubber were worn.
I put on the spare, ordered new tires, and drove more conservatively the rest of the trip!

Aging tires is a thing. The car was garage kept by the previous owner and only driven to “fetch ice cream cones with the grandkids” type of driving.

Sorry about the long post.

Regards, Tom
tm peterson

There are a lot of variables, but those variables are hard to calculate for each situation, so generally speaking, only age is used. They degrade from the inside out, so even if the tires look new they could be ready to fail. I usually go about 7-8 years and replace them.

You may feel silly spending $500 to replace tires that look new, but how silly would you feel if you tried to get another year or two out of them and caused a major accident when a tire blew out?
Steve Simmons

I guess with tires we are somewhat at the mercy of the manufacturers. I have not seen any actual scientific study on how long a tire is good for. I would think is is somewhat different depending on the formula used to make the tire compound.

I have this issue with my travel trailer. It has 4 tires and I have already had the fun experience of having one go out while towing. It sits most of the year outside (with covers over the tires).

I typically change these every 4 to 5 years. But then, I use the old tires on things like yard trailers, portable generators, and even the backhoe. These items can blow out without any big issue.
Bruce Cunha

So last weekend I spent the $517 to put 4 Nexem tires on. 16 years old and was told the rubber was starting to look hard. Asked how often I should change tires and was told if not a lot of UV exposure I should get 10 years.
TR Hammond

From what I know It is usually the steel belting that fails due to corrosion and mechanical fatigue. The rubber just turns hard, wear becomes minimal and performance in wet conditions sucks.
On a different car, I had 20 year old tires with profile nearly as new, one finally failed from a broken carcass that fortunately developed slowly, starting with a bump that was noticeable when driving. After changing and deflating the tire, it started to crack open a day later. So it might have exploded if still inflated.
I personally think 10 years is not an issue if the car is kept inside, at 15 I would start shopping for new tires.
Let‘s not forget we have inner tubes that provide an added level of safety.

Rgds, Mike
Mike Fritsch

This thread was discussed between 07/07/2023 and 08/08/2023

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