how would one know the age of a tire,like most things have a time that the item expaire,do tires ?? i had a tire that came apart on the hiway last year.
they are marked on the side of the tire
there is no set expiration date on tires , all you can do is inspect them for dry rot ( cracks on the surface of the sidewall and the tread )
Mark said it perfect. There isn't a expiration date but cracking and dry rott is most definitely a sign to chance. The date is the last four numbers. The first two of the last four indicates the week and the last four indicates what year. The media does indeed love this topic as to where someone is always to blame. Good Luck!
The date of manufacture is actually written on the sidewall of the tire near the bead as part of the DOT number. While the DOT number is on both sides of the tire the date code is only one one side (which could be mounted toward the inside of your car) so you might have to crawl underneath to read it. The DOT code is a jumble of letters and numbers up to 12 characters long that indicate who made the tire, where and when. It starts with the letters DOT. On any tire built from 2000 on the last 4 numbers are the date of manufacture. If it says 2704 for example the tire was made in the 27th week of 2004. If the tire was built before 2000 then there are 3 digits on the end for the build date. 278 would mean the 27th week of 1998 for example. Tires do not have an expiration date by the way and tire aging is a very hot topic in the industry right now (and the subject of some media attention). While tires can fail due to old age how old is too old is not well defined at this time. Further study awaits. The tire that you had come apart could have done so for lots of reasons unrelated to age. Most typical would be a puncture. As the tire loses air it overheats and if it gets too hot it starts to disintegrate. I see that every day, especially if the car was on the highway.
