The Chemstrand Company created the synthetic greenery, which was originally called Chemgrass. It became known as Astroturf when it was laid down in the Astrodome in time for the Houston Astro’s ‘66 baseball season.

There are times when cruising the internet brings up things that must be looked into. In fact, just recently I was doing just that, when a small item caught my eye. Did you know that all items manufactured for use have a shelf life. OK, so your saying “Duh…” In other words, these manufactured items are not considered to be new, and should not be sold after a certain period of time, hence the “shelf-life” dates on some manufactured items.

So… now what? Well, an integral item used in the course of your daily routine does not have a shelf life. And every day your lives depend on this product.

I’m talking about your tires… Car… Motorcycle… whatever you use to get around the town. And tire dealerships are selling tires that are six, seven, even eleven years old and are calling them new. And many people are paying with their lives by driving on these “past shelf life” products.

Tires, like everything else that is manufactured, have a useful life span. After a period of time, and not being used, they loose their elasticity; they tend to rot or dry up. The process that welds the tire tread to the carcass could become unstable if not mounted and driven within a short period of time. How short? That is not really known, but most experts believe that the shelf life of a new tire is between five and seven years. Once past that shelf life, the tires could delaminate at speed causing severe control issues.

Every tire sold in the U.S. requires a DOT imprint be placed on the tire shell. This DOT info is long, complicated and coded. The last part of the code tells you when your tires were manufactured. In a small oval or rectangular impression are numbers; numbers like 439, or 1205. This is the code for when your tire was built. The code 439 means the tire was built in the 43′rd week of 1999. That tire would be 9 years old. The 1205 means the tire was built in the 12th week of 2005 and the tire is 3 and a half years old.

What is disturbing is that the U. S. tire manufacturing community has not adopted a shelf-life concept for tires that have never been used and several vendors will sell you these “old” tires and call them new. How can a 9 year old tire be called new?

In England, tire manufacturers are required to tell vendors when stock should not be sold and/or returned to the manufacturer. However in the U.S., there is no such mandate. Most manufacturers still believe that tires have a very long (if not indefinite) shelf life. Some say that scientific evidence is just not able to say one way or another if a dated tire is good or bad. So, turning a blind eye, the manufacturers and vendors refuse to do anything about it. And tires that could be over ten years old are going on vehicles, just like the one you drive today. And no one seems to care… until the tread separates from the casing.

The problem is also prevalent in motorcycle tires where the shelf life could be less than half of what a car tire is. Certain types of motorcycle tires are sent to dealers where they will sit in storage until someone needs one. Your life could depend on a tire that is well over 6 years old and has never been mounted on a rim.

OK… so I checked my tires on my little Toyota pick-up. Three of those tires are less than three years old. That’s about right considering I just had them replaced two years ago. But one tire has a DOT date of 1901. You do the math. It went on the vehicle as new and it was five years old. Right now, I’m OK with that. But you can darn well bet that I am all over the next tire installation done on my car and/or motorcycle.

This isn’t just a rant by old Uncle Marky, trying to spread terror, dread and concern…

Here’s one place you can go to for this same information.

Hopefully, this link will still be viable and you can see a 20/20 news report about old, dated tires.

My final point… Take this information for what it is. It’s very simple to remember where this date information is and what it means. If you care about your life, and I think you do, you will make sure that “new” means new when it comes to having tires put on your vehicles. You will not rely on the vendor’s inventory system when it comes to your vehicle’s tires. This was an eye opener for me.

All of this now makes me wonder if even Astroturf has a “use by” date on it. I wouldn’t want my Dallas Cowboys playing on a surface that is over 15 years old!

Until next week…