Tyre Age and Safety

I read an interesting article today about tyre safety following a recent fatal coach
crash, where the coroner recommended the introduction of a law regarding the age of
tyres.

Rubber compounds break down and become brittle as they age, so any tyre more than six
years old is getting towards the end of its life. (This is advice from the tyre
industry itself).

There’s a four-digit date code on every tyre made after 1999. It is the last four
digits following the ‘DOT’ marking. The first two of these four numbers identify the
week of manufacture and the last two identify the year. So a tyre with the code
“DOT HB69 287T 2704” on the tyre wall was manufactured in the 27th week of 2004 and is well past it's safe life.

So not only with Caravans and motorhomes the inference is clear.

Any tyre over six years old exposes you to a higher risk of blow out, failure, or puncture from
penetration due to the rubber compounds starting to fail, meaning you are at a higher
risk of an accident.

As tyres may be stored before purchase, if you or an elderly relative has a car, caravan, or motorhome over five years old, or hasn't replaced tyres in the last five years and doesn't travel many miles in a year, then you may have unsafe tyres, regardless of the tread depth!

Agreed, unless of course they have been protected from sunlight, which not many are, but some people use tyre covers which make a hell of a difference.

My last Motorhome was 11 years old and had the original tyres on it, they were starting to get to the stage were they will need replaced, but had another year or maybe two in them yet.

I used 1960's Cooper S rally tyres in the noughties and they were perfect, they had been kept in complete darkness for over 40 years!

I think a tyre test at the MOT would be more beneficial than a ban on tyres over a certain age.

Someone who uses their Motorhome for a few weeks a year and stores it away from sunlight wouldn't be too impressed if they have to change their perfect tyres after 6 years.

Unless of course there is another reason why they break down other than sunlight? My 40 year old tyres were like new.

Good information Victor.
I had been wondering about the age of the tyres on my van. a 04 van but lots of thread left on them. No sign of any cracks in the side walls, but my guess is they are the original tyres as only 30 000 miles on the van. Ill be interested to see the age of them.

I had a blow out on my 03 van last year whilst coming home from Donegal,I thought maybe it was caused by a nail or something sharp on the road. when i had the tyre examined the outside wall was lightly perished so I just changed the whole lot to be on the safe side. Better safe than sorry.

Ours is the same 04 and around 30000 miles with good thread left. I would have thought at that mileage that the tyres would be worn! What mileage will a set of Motorhome tyres do if used a lot?