I took a tire in for repair today at Costco. The new road hazard warranty is only for 5 years as that is considered a lifetime for a tire. My tire was over 5 years old but was repaired anyway because I bought it before they established 5 years as the life of a tire. Even did the balance and rotation while I was there.
Iām curious, I am not saying you are wrong; butā¦
FYI, all tires have their date of manufacture stamped on them. The last four numbers represent the manufacturerās date. The first two numbers indicate the week, while the last two indicate the year. (For example, a tire with the number 4016 was manufactured in the 40th week of 2016).
So, imagine if you would, you are at Costco and youāve just paid almost $1,000 for a set of new tires for your car and the installer rolls out your new tires and you go over to check them out and you notice that the date stamp on them is 3318 and you do the math and realize that they are 5-years old this weekā¦
Are you going to say, āHey these tires are 5-years old, do I get a free cake to celebrate their birthday?ā
Or are you going to say, āHey, these tires are 5-years old, go and get me a new set?ā
I see the point of the 5-year life warranty on a tire. That is a long time for something that is āwhere the rubber meets the roadā¦ā Consider the conditions a tire experiences: weather, sun, wear, bumps, rocks, stones, high/low pressure, etcā¦ and that is a really long time. That tire is going to deteriorate. I am surprised that with the punishment we put tires through that they last as long as they doā¦
I remember reading about all the engineering that goes into tires back during the Ford/Firestone issues. A lot of thought goes into the materials and design of tires and most of us donāt give them much thought.
I also seem to remember tires having an expiration of sorts after 6 years and replacement being suggested no matter the mileage or visible wear. I am sure there are exceptions if tires are stored in suitable locations but you usually start to see dry cracking at this time.
I do river cleanups where trash is picked up. Unfortunately tires are almost guaranteed. Some of the older ones that have been buried in the river for a while are literally so deteriorated that you can rip them by hand and they have this stretchy rubber feeling like a dog chew toy. I once rolled one up into a little ball by hand and jammed it into the center of another tire to save space. I called it the ātire rollup.ā Some of the tires are quite old and bias ply. People think they have picked up all the trash and then another flood comes along and unearths another tire that has been buried in the sediment for decades. Many probably pre-date the use of synthetic materials as well.
Discount tire will fix flats for free. They have tire age cutoff also.
Costco keeps a record of all your transactions, including the date when you bought a new tire and some identification of the item. They have always looked that up on their computer when I show up for service.
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Bridgestone/Firestone distribution warehouses keep track of ever DOT and the system will not allow a 3 year old tire to be shipped, it has to be destroyed, Firestone retail stores can not sell a tire that is 5 years old (IIRC it has to have at least one 2" hole drilled into the sidewall), the Point Of Sale (POS lol) system will flag it and you can not sell it, it is a $5,000 fine per tire for falsifying a DOT number and the system knows which DOT number goes with which tireā¦ They can repair a tire down to above 2/32 at the lowest point, tire is deemed unsafe by DOT at 2/32 or less, and up to 10 years from the DOT date codeā¦
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At my age (72), 5 years is pretty much a lifetime warranty.
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I can agree with that age related repair policy. When a tire gets a flat, it causes āsomeā damage, even if itās really insignificant, such as a small nail, but the tire is old and the material is also age deteriorated and the damage might spread, not only that, the tire repair place does not know what you hit to get that nail. Did you hit a large board and the nail was ripped from the board, etcā¦ How long did you drive on that tire as it slowly leakedā¦ If that tire should fail catastrophically after the repair, the shop could be held responsible.
Ahh, youāve still got plenty of life ahead of you. I fully expect to be working until Iām at least your age!
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72 Is not old just the begining of middle age for us country boys who donāt live in big citys with all the pollution. 
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Heh, heh, was in a pet store, a friendly parrot agreed to climb onto my finger then walked up my arm to my shoulder. Had to get an employee to remove the bird. I liked it but told the employee I am not getting any pet that will outlive me. He said,ā put it in your will, thatās what I didā.
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My Costco tires were 2016 and Iām pretty sure they were bought after 2016. I just replaced them.
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I should have kept my 67 Catalina, it had a Diehard sold with a lifetime battery!
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One advantage of āmaturingā - I now have lifetime supplies of several items!
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No offense . . . but I think you would have a hard time getting that warranty honored nowadays 
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Why I brought this up. All three of Costco suppliers, Michelin, Bridgestone and BF Goodrich all consider the service limit of a tire to be 10 years from the date code on the tire. As far as I know, Costco will not sell a tire over two years old.
The reason I get that 2 year old limit was that I went for tires for my 97 Nissan Pick Up. It uses P215-70-14, a size that was getting hard to get. When they got them down from stock, the were just over the two year limit so the store sent them back and I had to wait another 6 days for newer tires to be shipped in. That was a while back and policies do change.
I just think the 5 year limit is a bit too early. There are some sellers other than Costco who now say 6 years from date of sale is the limit. I could live with 6 years.
Edit: Just for the heck of it, I went out and checked the date codes on the tires and the original receipt. The original receipt was 5/17. One tire was replaced a month later due to unrepairable road hazard. Not enough wear on the other three tires to require all 4 to be replaced.
Date codes, one is 3019, two are 4619 and the fourth is 0620. Go figure. All four tires were installed in 2017 and I have all the receipts for both the sale and all the rotation and balances. And Iāve owned the car since new.
The tires were installed at around 56k miles, one OEM tire had gotten a side wall puncture so all 4 had to be replaced. One of the new tires also had to be replace but only within a couple of weeks so it did not require all 4. The car now has 138k. Oh yeah, it is a 2014 Subaru Legacy. All 4 tires show an even 5/32" across all treads.
Itās a warranty numbers game. If 95% of people buy new tires or a new car within 5 years -then if you warranty tires for LIFE - youāre only be paying out on any claims for that 5%.Youād make more money of increased sales because youāre offering a lifetime warranty. If 95% drops to 90%, then the lifetime warranty may not make sense, but a 5 year warranty will. Companies do this all the time in different ways.
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I live in a leafy green suburb with little pollution, but i smoked until i had my first stroke in 2008, and i come from a long line of people with poorly functioning cardiovascular systems.
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5 years is a common repair limit for passenger car tires. It doesnāt matter who is paying for the repair, tires in service for more than 5 years are considered to be non-repairable.
Below is my Costco tire receipt from March, 2005.
"What is covered:
- This warranty is valid for 60 months from the date of purchaseā¦"
Iād hate to live more than another 5 years feeling like i do everyday.