Expensive tire sidewall cracks; slow leak

Maintenance/Repairs
1

I have 5 full size (Including spare) fairly expensive tires (Michelin 82897 P245/55R19 108H Defender LTX M/S BGW SL) on my 2013 Toyota Venza, The vehicle has about 80000 miles, roughly 60000 - 65000 of which were on these tires. They were purchased at the end of November 2018, so are about 6.5 years old. They are below rated mileage, and have lots of tread left, but the tire store people, who I trust, originally said that such tires last about 5 years before the rubber rots. They checked them when they were 6 years old, and said they were still good, and showed no signs of misalignment, but told me to bring them back for another check around September 2025, because of the age.

BTW, I don’t go off-road, but sometimes drive in snow, which I why I wanted M+S tires with deep tread.

Now one of them has developed small cracks in the sidewall, and I need to refill the air at least once/week - sometimes 4 days - to keep the pressure up. I have pumps (a bit slow) and a gauge, and I’m willing to do that. All the tires have needed to be refilled every few weeks anyway - perhaps because they are rated to 42 PSI, but the car maker, Toyota, says to only use 32 PSI on that vehicle.

My main concern is whether the tire could blow out and create a safety hazard.

I took my car to another store (Goodyear), because they offered free air, and someone I knew thought they were fairly honest. The person who refilled it it noticed the cracks. He said that tire stores tell people to replace tires when that happens - but said it in a tone of voice that implied to me he wouldn’t. I’m not sure how knowledgeable he was. He claimed to know little about non-Goodyear tires.

I can take the car back to the store where they were bought for an evaluation - but they are very popular because the sports car community (e.g., the Porsche owners with unequal size tires) and some others love them, so I must stay for an all day visit. If needed I would choose the same store for replacement, even though they are a bit more expensive than discount stores, because I trust them, and because they repair tires other stores won’t, and don’t charge for rotations and repairs to tires they sold. (They are the only store who has ever been willing to repair a flat for me. And the only store I know that can shave tires. An NTW store once destroyed the underbody of a vehicle that I loved because they lifted it in the wrong place. And I just assume those sports car owners know who is good.)

This is an AWD vehicle, so I guess one would normally replace all 5 tires at once. The original store has the equipment to shave down new tires to match wear, but would that be silly to match 6.5 year old tires?

Since I have included all 5 tires (on same-type wheels) in the tire rotation (they are bidirectional tires), they all have about the same wear. I could have the tire store make the cracked tire my permanent spare, and otherwise stop using it. I could even do that myself - I once had one go flat after driving over a large bolt, and changed it myself; they repaired the tire for free. Is either of those what you folks would do?

Could I indeed safely wait until September to bring my car (with tires) back to the tire store I bought them at?

2

Paul Walker the actor died because of old tires.

Tester

3 Likes
3

Hard to tell without a photo demonstrating how pervasive or deep the cracks are. But I would have the tire removed and checked for leaks. You could easily have picked up a nail that’s causing the slow leak.

All of them? I have 4 cars in my fleet and rarely have to add air more than once every several months. Has that been the case since they were new? If so that may indicate corrosion around the wheel beads and not a problem with the tires themselves.

I would stop including the spare in the rotation. Why wear out/buy 5 tires when you can wear out/buy only 4? The spare doesn’t need to be exactly the same diameter for the very short distance it would be in use.

4 Likes
4

asemaster wrote:

I would stop including the spare in the rotation. Why wear
out/buy 5 tires when you can wear out/buy only 4?
The spare doesn’t need to be exactly the same diameter for
the very short distance it would be in use.

I wanted equal wear on same type tires (including the spare) with same type wheels, using an easily replaced but good quality tire model (the Achilles Desert Hawk tires the vehicle came with would have taken 2 weeks to re-order after one went flat, because almost no one stocks them, and used tire stores told me they were so problematical they wouldn’t take any of them even for free; they were also noisy even on smooth highways, and were unidirectional so I guess a same-type spare wouldn’t work) because I sometimes drive hundreds of miles from the nearest open tire store in rural areas. After that one Desert Hawk flat, I therefore had to replace all 4 tires, so carrying a 5th of the same type, and keeping it in the rotation, seemed a good economy and safety precaution. And for whatever reasons, the Michelins are a lot quieter and offer a smoother ride. I simply can’t restrict myself to driving only a short distance on a spare. Plus I twice burned out limited slip differentials on a truck, perhaps in part by driving them with a donut spare under such conditions. I really hate that modern cars & trucks come with donut spares, or none. On a city car - maybe. But even on SUVs? (The Venza is a “crossover SUV”, technically registered as a truck, though it’s really just an AWD high clearance station wagon. I had to buy an extra same-type wheel to match. But even most off-road rated 4WD pickup trucks now come without full size spares. What do car & truck makers expect you to do when you are hundreds of miles from nowhere, and there are no cell phone towers? Ridiculous.)

5

6.5 yrs is not all that old. What kind of “tire store people” who you trust gave you 5 yrs? That’s weird. And don’t bother with the “Goodyear” places. Find a locally owned, independent shop that specializes in tires and alignments and ask them.

What kind of climate are you in? E.g. do they get a lot of sun and heat?

As noted above, post a pic. I’ve had plenty of tires where the surface cracks start to show, but they’re not a cause for real concern. If they leak slowly, also as noted above, you probably have leaky beads.

On the other hand, in the grand scheme of things, a new set of tire and peace of mind isn’t actually all that expensive.

1 Like
6

Likely due to a puncture. If the tire were leaking because of dry rot, it could have ruptured by now.

See if they will patch a dry rotted tire, other stores won’t. The shop I worked in would not patch a tire that was more than 5 years old.

Extra work for someone with no benefit, do you perform the tire rotations yourself? The tires will need to be replaced due to age before they wear out, your spare has been exposed to the weather and will need to be replaced also.

Dry rot? The date code on this tire is 3319, I took this picture last year.

20240220_113004
20240220_1130041920Ă—2560 248 KB

3 Likes
7

Have you checked the actual age by looking at the code on the tire? Given your description I’d replace all 5 tires tomorrow. But that’s me.

3 Likes
8

How many times have we told people that maximum pressure is a safety number for the tire mounting people. The door plaque is what the owner and the tire stores go by.

If I hear of a shop that will repair tires that the others won’t I am not going there.

2 Likes
9

Here’s another vote for a nail in the tire. I used to work near a scrap processing facility. Trucks bringing in scrap would drop nails and bolts in the road outside the scrap processor. Usually, the only way I could tell there was a nail was to remove the tire.

2 Likes
10

He lives near us, at least from a climate perspective. In his other active thread, @grunes_183031 said he lives near DC.

3 Likes
11

Michelins are known for getting crows feet sidewall cracking, nothing new in the tire world…

As a few other have said, post a pic…

Here is a good read on weather cracking and tire aging from our very own tire engineer CapriRacer…

Barry's Tire Tech

3 Likes
12

Me have questions for Mr. Grunes.
Why keep airing tires so often when a good tire shop might solve the air lose problem

Why go to an expensive performance shop where you have to spend a whole day when there are places that will let you make an appointment

There are many good tires on the market and some house brands will do just fine

Chain stores are a hit and miss deal, some are really good but they all have a large turn over so some of their workers are not that experienced ( EX. the person who said they only know about Goodyear tires is not someone to listen to )

Buying 5 new tires is silly when the spare can be one of your old ones or even the cheapest thing of the right size

You mentioned discount tires, if you are talking about the actual Discount Tire / American tire company they are excellent to deal with

Me go get more coffee now :wink:

1 Like
13

BTW, I just let about 4-5psi out of my tires from when I aired them up when it got cold last winter (8 months ago)… they are set back to the 32psi that the place card recommends for my size tire…

1 Like
14

For safety reason, I always switch out my tires at the 5 year mark.

When it comes to motor vehicle, you want to make sure the tires and brakes are in excellent condition.

15

My philosophy regarding tires & brakes is… If in doubt, change them out.
One fatal accident can ruin your entire day.

1 Like
16

I just looked again and could not find the cracks the Goodyear guy pointed out. I tried washing the tire, but still no go. I tried spread soapy water on it, but the suds associated with spreading hid any obvious leaks. I’m clearly not as good at finding defects as he was.

I live in suburban Maryland East of DC - used to be NE of DC. A relatively warm humid climate, but not as extreme as some places. It rarely gets above 100 deg F here. We get a fair amount of rain, and we salt the roads during snow. The car is stored outside.

The tire company I bought it at isn’t limited to “performance cars”, and is “independent” if you mean they sell many brands, and has a huge selection. It has very good (close to 5*) online ratings from most but not all reviewers, at Yelp, BBB, CarFax, Google maps, and the local chamber of commerce. It has 1 very bad review at Superpages. People line up for a couple blocks starting a couple hours or so before they open, and they keep 6 lift bays (I think) busy, working on tires, alignments, and I think they have recently added brakes and suspensions, but tires are still the main thing there. And they start with the paperwork and looking at the tires before the car or truck gets to the bays. (But I don’t think they handle the big rig trucks.) I estimate they look at roughly 100 cars/day, 5.5 days/week. I suppose I could leave while it is serviced, once the paperwork is handled, but there isn’t much else in walking distance.

I assume it wouldn’t be all right to list the company name here?

However, the tire store that wrecked my VW Vanagon also had pretty good reviews a couple places I looked - though it now seems to be called NTB rather than NTW. Maybe the store was bought out? Or I mis-remember. Or they had one bad mechanic.

The spare tire was put on a wheel I found at a junkyard. I suppose it could have been defective, though the tire store said it was all right - but it’s been 6.5 years since the tire went on.

I guess it’s back to the tire store.

17

A 6-1/2 year old tire is dry rotted to ____ where I’m at

I’d chuck em and get a fresh set

Not to be a spoiler . . . just because the shop’s been around and is busy doesnt actually guarantee they’re doing a great job

If you’re regularly topping off, you most likely picked up a nail

I remove ALL the little rocks from the grooves and there’s often a small nail under one of the rocks

Valve stems also can leak

If in doubt, spray with WD40 . . . if it bubbles, it’s leaking

As others said, sometimes you don’t see the nail until you dismount the tire

But your tires are old, so the only reason to remove them is to dismount them and throw them in the trash

And rubber gets hard. New tires handle better

1 Like
18

And a 6-1/2 year old tire for me is just fine.

I have a pickup that sits in the driveway for months at a time, sometimes long enough that the battery goes dead. I don’t drive it much anymore, but it’s so handy to have a pickup when you need one or to have an extra car around that I don’t plan to get rid of it. The tires on it are a semi-budget brand that are now 9 years old. They’ve only got 25,000 miles on them, have more than half the tread and no signs of weatherchecking or dry rot.

I think the idea that I need to replace those tires simply because they are 9 years old is a bit alarmist.

19

Especially if it’s your life. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

20

I think discussing tires is like discussing oil and batteries

Many people feel strongly and there will be disagreement

2 Likes