The tire gods have spoken

[campism]

And what they told me was to not try to get one more trip, one more mile, one more day out of my old tires, but to go home and buy some NEW damn tires. I'd been planning to get away for one last Westy trip this year, a quick overnight to the Potomac with a bicycle so I can do some riding on the C&O Canal Towpath. I've been there before but this would be a solo trip and the unseasonably warm December would make it interesting.

However, electrical problems at the house forced a delay. Several delays, in fact, as another problem would crop up as soon as the electricians figured one out. Once that was settled we had three solid days of rain leading up to Christmas and by some miracle the warm weather was still holding, so yesterday I was determined to head out. It was misting as I left the neighborhood and my wiper blades sucked so I returned to replace them. Once on the road I was happy to be the one going camping while the rest of those poor schlubs were heading home from Grandma's house.

Traffic was moving well and I was about three hours out and an hour from my destination when a low rumble got my attention. Heard the same thing in June in Miami when one of my tires shredded on I-95 in a Friday rush hour. Now, here I was in boondock Virginia on a holiday weekend on a road with heavy big rig traffic. Not a cool place for a roadside fix. Fortunately, the shoulder of I-81 widened magically at just that spot so I had a full extra vehicle width of pavement to pull onto, giving me a much welcome bit of space between me and the rigs blasting past.

So, looking at this thing it became clear to my thick-skulled personage what is going on here. All those stories you hear about tires aging and becoming unreliable and unsafe? True. The first instance in June was to one of the Chinese-made Wynstar Phaser RTL51 185R14C tires on the van when I bought it ten years ago. This episode occurred to the spare I put on at that time, the Michelin that was in the spare tray when I bought the van ten years ago, a tire that looked new and which, to my knowledge, had only the 1,200 miles or so I drove home from Miami and since.

I guess the lesson here is pretty obvious; a tire which has served you well for many years and which appears to have many happy miles left in it should not be trusted beyond a certain age. Or a tire called into service after many years in the spare tray and which looks great and is performing admirably should also not be trusted beyond a certain age.

I spent a decade and a half as a sales rep doing more than 50,000 miles per year and I seldom had tire trouble and usually got 70,000-80,000 miles on any set I used. Those tires never had a chance to get old, but my Westy tires did and twice I've been sidelined with tire failure. Time to break out the CLKs and buy some new boots for them and get them on the van. Should have done it sooner, but I did not want to waste money on tires when I did not think I needed to. It's now clear to me that I needed to.

_________________
'87 Westy in Wolfram Grey Metallic

[insyncro]

Nothing like new rubber.

[Ahwahnee]

Of course all tires (except the very old) have the manufacture date on the sidewall:

Opinions vary as to how old is too old, but 10 years is always too old.

If there is no date code then they are from a prior century.

The code is usually on one side of the tire so you may have to look for it a bit. I always mount the tire with the date code to the outside (unless it is a directional specific tire).

[Merian]

[msinabottle]

Thank you for confirming my decision to replace Winston's externally perfect Micnelin Agilis with LTX Defenders, as described HERE:

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=584507&start=240

I just found myself worrying too much about them being a decade old, and so hard by the time I replaced them that Winston had NO TRACTION AT ALL on ice. And that was two years ago!

I hope the expense you're in for now isn't too horrid.

Best!
_________________
'Winston,' '84 1.9 WBX Westy
Vanagon Poet Laureate: "I have suffered in
many ways, but never, never, never in silence."

[dobryan]

Glad you had a safe place to pull off and thank you for sharing your lesson. Hopefully we take heed.
_________________
Dave O
'87 Westy w/ 2002 Subaru EJ25 and Peloquin TBD

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." Robert Louis Stevenson

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