Tiny cracks on tires

[Polygon]

Or you could just live in a state that doesn't have state car inspections. Lots of fun driving down the road, not knowing if that guys brakes work properly or not.

Side note: Oklahoma is the only state in the US where it is legal to drive with no hood on the car. True story.

Yeah, good point. I know someone here that lives in a county with no emissions laws just so he can run without a cat.

As a trade off he has to live near a nerve gas incinerator. Not quite a fair trade off it seems.

[katwalk]

Change them. Mine were like that before swapping them out and when I replaced them I realized how dangerous they had been. There was like no traction anymore and the difference between them and the new ones was actually frightening.

[thevictor390]

Someone I know decided he needed new tires after he noticed a strange white material showing up in some spots

[Clegko]

That's not true; in Pennsylvania it is perfectly legal to operate a vehicle without an engine cover as long as the fan is shrouded.

Really. I thought it was just Oklahoma that was that special...

[katwalk]

Someone I know decided he needed new tires after he noticed a strange white material showing up in some spots

Mine other than the cracks were 100% visually ok, but if I for example tried to get on to rt 1 in the rain I would start to spin. It was scary as hell.

[InfernalVortex]

I think in the US we just have more of a "the idiots weed themselves out" mentality.

We're not into paying a government agent to go around checking brands of tires all the way around the car. Everyone is required to have liability insurance. It's also in everyone's best interests to keep their cars safe enough for them to drive.

Cars that are unsafe to drive tend to quickly remove themselves from the road of their own volition.


We dont have huge spates of accident waves across the country as hundreds of thousands of poorly-maintained cars start killing thousands of innocent people. Say what you want about our laissez faire system, but regardless of what your governments and culture have lead you to believe, it's just not a problem.

[lv2xlr8]

Does anyone know what the rule is on how old tires should be when you buy them? Within a year? a couple of months or weeks or? What is considered acceptable?

[Spectre]

Most tires are good for 6-8 years of use (in terms of age, not in terms of usage) from date of manufacture. Generally speaking, a new tire should be only 3-6 months old when you get it; anything a year or older should be rejected, IMHO.

The British Rubber Manufacturers' Association says that unused tires should not be put into service if they are over 6 years old and all tires should be replaced at 10 years from date of manufacture. Some European makers say that 6 years is the limit for any tire and that you should replace them at time.

[katwalk]

^ Mine went bad a lot sooner, but my car is a special case. My grandmother only had it a few months before getting cancer and was unable to drive for the last 2 years of her life so it sat from 2003-05 with only about 3k miles on it. I think that is why they went bad so fast.

How the hell is my car not totally broken anyway, it was never turned on for 2 years, then almost totaled, then was used by an idiot teenager for 4 years.....

[lv2xlr8]

^ Mine went bad a lot sooner, but my car is a special case. My grandmother only had it a few months before getting cancer and was unable to drive for the last 2 years of her life so it sat from 2003-05 with only about 3k miles on it. I think that is why they went bad so fast.

How the hell is my car not totally broken anyway, it was never turned on for 2 years, then almost totaled, then was used by an idiot teenager for 4 years.....

When they sit around without use outside, it can be shortened considerably. 6-8 years is the basic guideline. Like most things in life, it is relative to the certain circumstance/situation. In terms of your car surviving your driving and near totaling, you must have a magic touch.

Most tires are good for 6-8 years of use (in terms of age, not in terms of usage) from date of manufacture. Generally speaking, a new tire should be only 3-6 months old when you get it; anything a year or older should be rejected, IMHO.

The British Rubber Manufacturers' Association says that unused tires should not be put into service if they are over 6 years old and all tires should be replaced at 10 years from date of manufacture. Some European makers say that 6 years is the limit for any tire and that you should replace them at time.

Ah, ok, thanks. I knew that 6-8 years was the basic rule depending on climate, mileage and usage but wanted to know when you buy tires how old they should be. 3-6 months sounds within reason.

Anyone have experience with purchasing tires at Tirerack?

[Spectre]

Lots of people here buy tires from TireRack, no problem - myself among them (love those Kumho Ecsta MXs and they're hard to find elsewhere). Unless you're buying something rarely sold or a winter tire out of season, usually the tires you get from them are within the usual 3-6 month window and quite often a lot fresher. My last set of Ecsta MX's were less than two months old when I got them.

[Polygon]

I think in the US we just have more of a "the idiots weed themselves out" mentality.

We're not into paying a government agent to go around checking brands of tires all the way around the car. Everyone is required to have liability insurance. It's also in everyone's best interests to keep their cars safe enough for them to drive.

Cars that are unsafe to drive tend to quickly remove themselves from the road of their own volition.


We dont have huge spates of accident waves across the country as hundreds of thousands of poorly-maintained cars start killing thousands of innocent people. Say what you want about our laissez faire system, but regardless of what your governments and culture have lead you to believe, it's just not a problem.

Do you really know that for a fact? I don't think one innocent person killed because someone was allowed to drive an unsafe hunk of shit on the roads.

[InfernalVortex]

Do you really know that for a fact? I don't think one innocent person killed because someone was allowed to drive an unsafe hunk of shit on the roads.

That doesn't appear to be a complete sentence, but I'll attempt to address it.

In my anecdotal experience, which involves me driving at least 20k miles a year, I've never been in an accident caused by maintenance neglect on my behalf or someone else's. The only such instance I am aware of is a friend who had a friend who had a wheel bearing fail on him, but I'm not convinced any kind of reasonably labor/cost effective government-sponsored inspection system could have caught something like that anyway.

It's never been something that I've thought was necessary. Even if there were safety inspections, they couldn't possibly catch every potential issue, there are simply too many different modes of failure for it to make that significant of an impact. It would just be a needless beaurocratic money drain. I will say that police officers will pull people over if they see something obviously unsafe rolling down the road. There are certain standards, but they're addressed on the road by people who are already paid to keep the roads safe.

http://www.aa1car.com/library/auto_accident.htm

Mechanical failures are a factor in 12% to 13% of all auto accidents, according to all of the statistics I could find on the subject. In most cases, the mechanical failures can be attributed to normal wear or a lack of proper vehicle maintenance, not poor design or manufacturing defects (though there have been plenty of examples of the latter over the years).

Tire failure is considered a mechanical failure, so I wonder how many of these 13 percent of all accidents were caused by something other than a tire issue?

Most of those other failures are probably suspension/bushing/brake issues. Most people dont work on their own cars and will take their cars to mechanics, and mechancis are all too eager to get a customer to buy a brake job. Brakes are one area where you are generally very aware if you have a developing problem, to the point that people generally WILL address it for their own best interests. I dont think a government agent with a ruler is really necessary here.

So to me that leaves axle bearings, suspensions parts, and steering parts as being the most dangerous of the rest of the components in the car, and failures of those do happen of course... but I would still say they're fairly rare.

[Polygon]

That doesn't appear to be a complete sentence, but I'll attempt to address it.

In my anecdotal experience, which involves me driving at least 20k miles a year, I've never been in an accident caused by maintenance neglect on my behalf or someone else's. The only such instance I am aware of is a friend who had a friend who had a wheel bearing fail on him, but I'm not convinced any kind of reasonably labor/cost effective government-sponsored inspection system could have caught something like that anyway.

It's never been something that I've thought was necessary. Even if there were safety inspections, they couldn't possibly catch every potential issue, there are simply too many different modes of failure for it to make that significant of an impact. It would just be a needless beaurocratic money drain. I will say that police officers will pull people over if they see something obviously unsafe rolling down the road. There are certain standards, but they're addressed on the road by people who are already paid to keep the roads safe.

LOL, it is. I didn't even notice that. It's supposed to say "is acceptable" at the end.

Anyhow, I have never been involved in an accident because of this either. However, that doesn't mean it isn't happening. I've heard of accident caused because of items that should have been caught in inspection. As a matter of fact there are a lot of things that shops are supposed to check for that they don't. Also, checking a wheel bearing takes a couple of seconds. Get the tire off the ground and put your hands at 12 and 6 and try to rock it up and down. If you have play then you have a bad bearing. I see people driving around with unsafe crap all the time and police don't bother.

[NooDle]

those 12-13% seems to be a bit high, I remember reading some statistics a while ago where it stated that some ridiculously high number was due to human error and only 4% of all accidents were due to a fault with the car (steering, tyres, brakes, whatever)

that sounds more right to me.... given that you have 10 accidents in your life (I know this is a high number, but bear with me), atleast 1 of them will be due to a mechanical failure... seems a bit steep IMO.

FYI I have driven for 11 years now, and Lord knows how many kms and have had 1 tyre fail me (not causing an accident either).

I'm not counting stupid things like headlamps, etc, since them failing hardly cause an accident immediately

[MrBooby]

don't mix tires, if you have RS-A only put on RS-A's...the different pattern will screw with your handling in the wet