Case Study – The age of your tyres

Tuesday 21 April 2020

ROAD SIDE ASSISTANCE – TYRE AGE

Every so often, we have a phone call from a damsel in distress, stuck on the side of the Bruce high way with a blown trailer tyre. Most of the time there isn’t a spare tyre or quite simply the blown tyre on the trailer…is already the spare tyre..from this blog, we hope to educate the risks of ageing tyres.

Before Christmas last year a lady called us, exact scenario, blown tyre side of the road, alas she had spare. We sent our service fitter Nick out in one of our commercial service trucks to pop on the spare tyre so we can either get her and her trailer back to our workshop or on her merry way taking furniture to Brisbane for a friend in need.

Now, the back story to this, the lovely lady, lets call her ‘Susan’ who was in quite the predicament, reluctantly agreed to help her husband out and tow the trailer to Brisbane for him while he was on a fishing trip. She asked him to make sure the trailer was safe to tow days before she had to set off on her mission.

On Nicks arrival to rescue ‘Susan’ on the Bruce highway, he discovered not only has she blown a tyre but the spare was not serviceable as the tyre had started to deteriorate from the elements over the 19 years, yes the tyre was 19 years old. She was pretty much up a certain creek with out a paddle. It was RACQ’s turn do the rescuing and deliver Susan’s trailer back to our workshop where we replaced all 3 tyres, the two on the trailer & the spare.

The condition on all the tyres on the trailer as follows from our inspection report;

Position 1 – Tyre has less than 25 PSI, Tyre was made in 2001 (19 years old) and show serve signs of cracking.

Position 2 – Blown tyre, Tyre made in 2001. Tyre is complete destroyed to inspect cause of failure.

Spare – Not serviceable. Less than 25 PSI, Bald edges & show severe signs of side wall cracking from weather/Sun exposure, Tyre made in 1998.

From this inspection, we could immediately tell, pressure had not been checked in some time, Months – years, and the tyres had not been replaced in some time. The spare was an old Olympic (For those who remember that old brand tyre). Susan was not very happy with her husband, the tyre blowing out on the Bruce high way with large trucks flying by can be rather terrifying.

There currently is no definitive tyre age limit as to when you should replace your tyres, but if your tyres are older than 8 years, you should keep a close eye on their condition and consider replacing them.

Over time rubber ages and can become brittle allowing the formation of cracks which can allows loss of tyre pressure. The steel belts used in the tyres construction maybe exposed to water penetration through the formed crack, the can in tyre separation.

To help identify the age of your tyres, each one is imprinted with a coded date which tells you when that tyre was manufactured.

For example;

PJAH – Factory of Manufacture

D2IV  – Tyre Code and Construction

3012 – Week and year of manufacture ( 30^th week of 2012)

Concerned about the tyres on your vehicle or trailer – Let our team check them out for you – FOR FREE!

To this today, we still wonder how old mate is after his return from his fishing trip, Alive & Well ?  Still well trusted by his loving wife ? Perhaps lost partial hearing ?

Whats the lesson you took from this blog post?

1. Check the condition of the tyres when asked by some who will be using the vehicle or equipment?
2. Have the tyres inspected by a tyre professional?
3. Prolong returning from a fishing trip ?

Tyre Repairs & replacements road side or in-store here on the Sunshine Coast  – Our team will have you covered