This is an update of a thread I started the other day about tires.

I got my spare wheel back and was cleaning up the tire today and noticed where the sidewall and tread meet has split. So this tire cannot be reused.

There is a series of numbers in a block "31786". The other tires on the car do not have this block with five numbers.

The date code on most tires should be four numbers but could be anywhere on the tire based on the manufacturer. The first two numbers are the week (ex:51) and the second are the year (eg:16). So that would be 5116.

This got me thinking about the other four tires that are on this car. The tread is good and the tires look OK and the rubber is still pliable (using my fingernail) but I really don't want to riding around on dodgy old tires like I did with my Trabant.

With that car, when my friend removed the tires, they tires fell apart. One tire was made in Czechoslovakia. If that tells you how old there were.

Even though I already had five new tires to go on the car.

I cannot find anything that resembles a date on the tires on my 2CV. Where would I find the date on manufacturer on Michelin 125R15 tires?

These tires have a DOT stamp (which is like Germany's TUV) and says "US and Canada" on them. So they should have a date somewhere on them being DOT rated.

The good news is these tires are not that expensive.

https://www.cokertire.com/125r15-firest ... N4EALw_wcB

Coker Tire here in the US is about the only place to find "odd ball" sized tires that most tire stores cannot get.

You cannot get a 13" SR 145 tire anymore here in the US unless you buy them from Coker at $80 a pop. The alternative size is 13" 155 80 series.

Which are always cheap ass Chinese made tires.

https://www.tirebuyer.com/education/how-to-determine-the-age-of-your-tires



Two of my 2CV's have Michelin tyres from the 90's. They all have the triangle mentioned.

By the way, my personal opinion of those 125R15 Firestone tyres, are that they are no good on a 2CV. The physical size of them seems very small, they are certainly narrower than a 125 Michelin X. And the tyre wall are much thicker than a Michelin, making the car "feel" different.
I don't like like them.

You are still running tires from the 1990s? The longest I ever ran a tire on a car was 15 years. Which was on my Fiat 124 Spider. They started to get rock hard and the rear end would tend to loose traction on wet roads. So I replaced them.

It seems UV rays will destroy a tire. If the car is kept in a garage, it will generally last longer. My Spider was kept in a garage and the tires were not dry rotted, just no longer pliable.

The US government says if a tire is more than 6 years old (even if it has never been used) it must be destroyed. It's against the law for a tire store to sell a tire more than 6 years old. Now how these used tires places get away with selling old used tires, I don't know.

Thanks for the input on the Firestones. I was actually surprised that there were other manufacturers of this size of tire. I figured Michelin was the only company that made this size tire. At least one of the rims on my Citroen is stamped Michelin.

I can get those Michelins over here. They are $100 a piece. Kind of pricey for such a narrow tire considering I just bought two new extreme load 15" 70/235s tires for my Chevy van at $70 a pop. Some unknown Korean brand but seems OK.

I checked my 2CV tires again. The only oval code after "DOT" is : A5B.

So if there is no 4 digit code, then it must indicate these tires are quiet old and need to be replaced.

There is some slight cracking on the sidewalls. But it's very hard to see. I'm not sure if I trust them.

Anyone remember the movie "World's fastest Indian" with Anthony Hopkins? They wouldn't let him run his bike on the Bonneville salt flats. One of the things they told him was his tires were dry rotted so he filled in the cracks with shoe polish!

do the modern tyres not have a 5 digit code so not to have the decade problem?
Older michelins were a lot better than the modern versions. I had a set of 125x400 tyres i bought form a french scrapyard. They did serve well for another 20 years. And i don't know how old they were at purchase...
Michelin did put the 2cv tyres in the collection series so they could ask more money for them...
There are more makes that have the 125x15 size.

Yeah, I run Michelin 135 ZX tyres from the 90's on two of my 2CV's. A couple are actually from the early 80's, and one is even a "tube type".
No problems with them. When I drove to the worldmeeting in Spain in 2013, I had Michelin X tyres from 1994 on my travel-car. The thread where half worn, and the sidewalls looked like a dried out riverbed in Africa. 9000km in tempereatures from 8 to 43 degrees, and autobahn through Germany, both ways, no problems! I think old tyres are much better than most people think. Especially on a light, slow moving vehicle like the 2CV. As long as there are no really big, deep cracks, I use it. But that's me.

I still have a spare set of 4 Michelin 135ZX tyres, from the 90's. Looking lovely with only a few small cracks. For Portugal this year though, I bought new Michelin X's for my travel car, because I wanted the X tyre on it, not the ZX.

That law in the US about 6 years old tyres seems a bit "over the top"?
If a new tyre is stored away from the sun, and preferably in a dark and cool place, they age nothing like a tyre sitting on a car.

If you think Michelin's are pricey, there are as said, other possibilities than the Firestones when you include the size 135R15.
Toyo, Nankang and the retro looking Camac for instance. I have no experience with the three last ones.

That movie you mentioned is a good one! Might see it again someday.

I did have an issue with two Michelin truck tires on my Chevy van. When my father owned this van, one of the rear tires blew out on him. Then after I bought it, one of the rears blew out again.

Luckily it was parked in my driveway when this happened. One day I noticed a blister or bulge in the sidewall. Before I could get it to a store store, it popped in my driveway. So I had to take both tires off the van myself.

The Michelins I have on my Subaru are 10 years old. They still have some tread left but I'm thinking about replacing them before winter. This is my "snow machine" so the more tread the better. Then I'll just sell the old ones for $40 like I did the last set. There are plenty of people out there that will give you $40 for a set of tires with 10,000 miles of tread left on them.

I think one of the things that started the debate on tire safety was back in the 1990s, Firestone had installed defective tires on the Ford Explorer Mk2 (I actually owned a 96 model). They suffered blowouts, rollovers, etc and even killed some people.

One thing that seemed to draw more attention was this was the best selling passenger vehicle in the US in the mid 1990s. If it had happened to anything else, it may not have even made the news.

I know that U-Haul has black balled Ford Explorer owners from renting trailers from them because of the tire blowout issue. I don't know about the newer Explorers which are entirely different vehicles.

I do think some tires are better than others when it comes to holding up with age. The Nankangs I had on my Fiat Spider did turn rock hard after 15 years. But the 10 year old Michelins on my Subaru are still pliable.

I don't know for a fact that tires older than 6 years old must be shredded. That's just what the owner of the tire store told me. Anything they can tell you to sell new tires!

I do know that if a tire does fall apart, the tire store can be dragged into the lawsuit as well as the manufacturer. So it may just be a rule tire stores have imposed on themselves to protect themselves.

I did some research and like every other law in the US, it varies from state to state. So what might be against the law in one state maybe legal in other. Like Marijuana and prostitution!

Here is a news story I stumbled upon. It's from 2013.

http://www.abc2news.com/news/local-news ... res-as-new

Got a lead on some Excelsior brand tires from a guy at $60 a piece. The thing is he says these are bias ply tires. He says the size is 4.25" X 15" which is the equivalent to 15" SR125 radials.

I asked the guy how old they were because I didn't think they had made bias ply car and truck tires in ages . I do know they still make trailer and ATV tires in bias ply.

He says they are "new" tires. Or "never been mounted" rather. Well what I wanted to know was when the tires were actually produced. He says they have been sitting in a dark warehouse.

He said he bought a bunch of tires in bulk or something.

This brand may not be heard of outside of the US. They are made by Coker tire here in the US which makes specialty tires for old cars to give that "period correct" look. They are the same company I bought those 13" SR145s tires for my Trabant. But those tires are radials made by Vredestein in Portugal and just sold by Coker.

So Coker does still in fact make reproduction bias ply tires.

I told him I'd think about it. That the reason I was going to replace these tires was because I didn't know how old they were. That I didn't want to be riding around on 20+ year old dodgy tires.

Concerning blow outs. Do you think if a tire actually did blow out, it would be detrimental? Do you think allot of times when a tire blows out, people simply panic and that's what contributes to most accidents?

Like I mentioned before, one of the rear Michelins on my Chevy van blew out on my father while on the interstate doing 65 mph and he never wrecked. He just pulled over to the breakdown lane.

I once had an incident with my Trabant where the throttle return spring broke and the engine went full throttle. What did I do? I just turned the ignition off to keep from blowing the engine and coasted to the side of the road. Bended a new hook in the end of the spring and drove home.

Of course this car doesn't have a locking ignition switch, power steering or power brakes so it wasn't like I was having to fight with the car to steer or stop it.

I once blew out (as you call it) a rear tyre of my 2cv doing 100 km/h+ and I hardly noticed it. I just rolled over to the side.. Many years ago I have driven on a flat tyre on a snowy road. It was the front tyre for miles and miles. I noticed it first when I hit the tarmsc again. With the special neutral steering geometry I guess nothing dangerous will happen blowing a front tyre....

Mostly it is the noise/sound which scares you..

I had a blow out on the front right in the Ami8 many years ago. Flat out in the fast lane too. No loss of steering, just a thumping from the front, lumps of rubber flying skywards and loss of speed. Indicated to pull over, changed the wheel and carried on. Try that in a Ford.

But i think radial tyres a better in roadholding for a 2cv. The car was developed with those.
And i did see a 2cv with one broken steering rod driving on in a race in belgium. Apart from a bit wobbly moving front wheel the car didn't look to be troubled by it..