I don't know exactly where the recommendation came from, but I've always heard that 5 yrs. is about as long as they should go. I always check the date code on tires before I buy them, to make sure they're not slipping me some old rubber.Kal wrote:No one has come back with a best before date for tires yet... What is the oldest you'd allow a tire to get before you'd change it?[/i][/b]
Prior to 2000, the date code was three letters and three numbers (e.g. FKL404). Ignore the letters and the first two numbers are the week and the last number is the year. So FKL404 would translate to the 40th week of 1994.
After 2000 the date code was incorporated into the long "DOT" number. It will be the last 4 digits of the string of characters starting with DOT and will be 2 digits for the week, followed by 2 digits for the year.