How old are your tyres

The date a tyre was manufactured is included in the information contained on the tyre sidewall.
Graham Smith

Contributing Journalist

1 min read

It turned out that while the tyres appeared new they were in fact manufactured several years ago and had been in storage for a number of years before Ross bought them and fitted them to his caravan.

It is generally recommended that you have your tyres regularly inspected by a tyre technician, particularly as they age. After five years or so in use, this inspection should be done at least once a year.

As a general rule tyres should be replaced once they are 10 years old, that's 10 years from the date they were manufactured not fitted to the car, even if they appear to be in good usable condition and have not worn down to the tread wear indicator.

In Ross's case the tyres he bought believing them to be "new" had been in storage for some time and should not have been fitted to his caravan at all.

The date a tyre was manufactured is included in the information contained on the tyre sidewall and it's worth checking before you hand over your hard-earned cash for what you believe to be new tyres.

Graham Smith

Contributing Journalist

With a passion for cars dating back to his childhood and having a qualification in mechanical engineering, Graham couldn’t believe his good fortune when he was offered a job in the Engineering Department at General Motors-Holden’s in the late-1960s when the Kingswood was king and Toyota was an upstart newcomer. It was a dream come true. Over the next 20 years Graham worked in a range of test and development roles within GMH’s Experimental Engineering Department, at the Lang Lang Proving Ground, and the Engine Development Group where he predominantly worked on the six-cylinder and V8 engines. If working for Holden wasn’t exciting enough he also spent two years studying General Motors Institute in America, with work stints with the Chassis Engineering section at Pontiac, and later took up the post of Holden’s liaison engineer at Opel in Germany. But the lure of working in the media saw him become a fulltime motorsport reporter and photographer in the late-1980s following the Grand Prix trail around the world and covering major world motor racing events from bases first in Germany and then London. After returning home to Australia in the late-1980s Graham worked on numerous motoring magazines and newspapers writing about new and used cars, and issues concerning car owners. These days, Graham is CarsGuide's longest standing contributor.
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