Did Firestone take me to the cleaners?

As for ozone and tires, a local tire plant produced tires for the military and the compounding for the rubber in each component was very specific but the plant let the ozone treatment chemical run low and reduced the amount in every batch for several weeks because the first delivery had been inspected and approved and management felt no one would ever notice. But an unannounced random inspection pulled a dozen or so tires from the warehouse and analysis found the bad rubber resulting in all production being turned down and the plant was forced to scrap the tires or buff off all labeling and sell them to 3d world countries. It was a costly mistake which sped the bankruptcy of the company. The military’s compounding and individual wrapping of each tire in a foil backed ribbon made it obvious that there was a limited shelf life that could be extended with proper safeguards. Most of those tires were for Jeeps and were shipped to India.

And to reduce liability.

sounds like a reason to have a good ‘patch your own tire’ kit to reduce tussles with tire shops during the 6-10 year range

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Oh oh, off topic again but I can’t help it. Oh yeah those random inspections. Pabst was a big account in the bottle cap business and we’d deliver truck loads of bottle caps to them. They were very fussy and if a truck was late getting there according to their JIT schedule, they’d reject the whole semi load. What’re ya gonna do with millions of rejected bottle caps? They also would do random inspections of the boxes on the pallets to check for voids, excess dust, printing colors, you name it. They were big enough. I don’t drink Pabst beer-got a distinct dislike for the company. Of course I don’t drink beer anyway. I like root beer though.

And there was a time that Pabst was my preferred beer Bing. I acquired a taste for beer 60 years ago and in these grand decades of swilling brew there have been few that I disliked and only one that I refuse to drink, that is if it’s even still produced.

And like John Wayne it’s difficult for me to trust someone who can’t hold their liquor. Lucky for you you’re financially well positioned and won’t need to borrow $20 from me any time soon.

Well I was thinking about it. Like that country song goes, “and I was just thinking 'bout calling on you 'cause I’m busted”.

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OP, click on the “blogs” link, upper left on this page. Ray’s 1.9.2020 post addresses this topic.

https://www.cartalk.com/blogs/dear-car-talk/ten-years-overdue-new-tires

Tire in cold climates last longer, tires on a car parked in a garage last longer, tires in a mostly cloudy area last longer.

Conclusion, I am not replacing any tires with good tread unless I see sidewall cracking.

That ignores the rubber getting harder with age, even if there are no cracks.

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Your criteria may be too narrow.

I’ve just recently replaced 9-years old tires on Prius, which I “inherited” from the prior owner.
Thread is in like-new condition, they did not drive that car much.
No cracks on sidewalls, sidewall rubber is “soft-ish”: not ideal, but not that bad either.
The threads area was quite hard to touch and tires would spin if rain is within the 100 miles from me and ABS would engage often for any stop other than letting car roll to the stop :slight_smile:
New tires installed and the difference is a day and night.

My point is: cracking is the terminal stage, but tires have to be removed from usage substantially earlier based on their greatly reduced performance.
I want to live and I want my daughter driving the car to live, so few hundred bucks are lesser important in this equation.

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Protector - is that a brand of tire ?

You noticed English is not my first language, did you :slight_smile:
Post above was edited :slight_smile:

Also the substance that bonds the layers together breaks down over time.

Most people would be amazed at how many individual components are assembled to make a tire. And more amazed at how those components are put together and cooked to produce a tire.

+1
I used to know a guy who referred to tires as “just a hunk of rubber”, and who balked at the “high” price of tires. As a result, he had 4 OLD/USED Delta tires of different sizes on his rolling- wreck Pontiac.
It was just so much easier to say, “Let’s take my car, Charlie”, rather than risk my life in his car.

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I’m curious if anyone has had first hand experience with tire failure due to age related deterioration.

I haven’t but I tend to replace stuff ahead of time. At the auction for my dad’s stuff, I sold his snow mobile trailer. I got $15 for it. The tires were in terrible shape though with the sidewalls all cracked being out in the elements for 20 years. When I went down to the DMV with the guy to transfer the title, I told him the trailer was fine but he just had to put new tires on it. They really are cheap but I don’t know if he did or not, he was just focused on the cheap $15 for a trailer. I blew one tire out due to over-loading and it really is not fun trying to work on the side of the road to get it going again-depending on where you are, where the spare is, where the jack is, etc. Best to avoid the problem.

In the trunk of my 1974 Triumph TR6, The original spare tire is still there. Chunks of rubber have fallen off over the years. It’s certainly not safe at all to use.

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I’ve experienced tires hardening with age and losing traction in wet weather as well.

It’s a long story, but a Lift Incorporated van got scrapped. I don’t know if Lift Inc. is still around, but I believe it was sort of like public transportation for people who could not drive themselves or something. Not 100% sure what all of their programs entailed, but they only drove those vans locally and very few miles, taking folks to the shopping center, or the social services office, or wherever. Then I assume the van had a problem at some point and eventually they sold it for scrap. So…the tires may have been pretty old. Great tread, and I needed tires for the clunker truck I was driving to work at the time. Bad idea, in hindsight. The torquey old 350 and low gear ratio in the truck combined with the rock hard tires on wet pavement wasn’t…ideal.