Ray Magliozzi
Dear Car Talk:
I recently took my car to a nationally known company to have my tires balanced and rotated. I was told that my tires were nearly 10 years old, and that once they passed that threshold, the company could no longer legally service my tires.
Is there some law that I don’t know about to back up their claim? We all know that materials break down and glue doesn’t last forever, but 10 years seems like a short time, especially with recent advances in technology and materials in tire production.
— Ron
No, there’s no law that forbids them from working on your tires. But their own lawyers may forbid it.
Tires are made of rubber and despite the advances in tire technology, rubber degrades over time — whether those tires are turning or just sitting still.
I’m sure you’ve once tried to use an old, dried-out rubber band and had it snap. The rubber in tires also dries out and gets more brittle and inflexible over time. This is due to the rubber’s interaction with ozone in the air and the baking effect of the sun.
There’s no hard and fast rule (or law) about when tires age out. But most shops put it at somewhere between six and 10 years — 10 years being the outside.
And I’m sure this shop’s lawyers said, “Look, if you rotate Ron’s 10-year-old tires, and a month later, he has a blowout and crashes into a watermelon stand and gets a pit stuck in his nose, he could sue us. After all, we were the last people to service the tires. And a court could conclude that we ‘implied’ they were safe because we serviced them. So don’t service any tires more than 10 years old.”
And the sales manager probably said, “That sounds great to me. It’ll give us a reason to sell more tires!” But I don’t think that’s the driving motivation here, Ron.
Even though the tires may have tread left on them, the rubber may be getting cracked and inflexible, which increases the likelihood of a sidewall blowout at high speed.
If the car was barely driven and always garaged, its tires are more likely to last longer than a car that sat in a driveway all of its life. But at 10 years, either way, it’s probably time for new tires.
Got a question about cars? Write to Ray in care of King Features, 628 Virginia Drive, Orlando, FL 32803, or email by visiting the Car Talk website at www.cartalk.com.
