How old is the tyre you are about to buy? It is a fair question and it has an answer, because every tyre carries four digits on the sidewall giving the week and the year it was made. Tyres sit in warehouses. One made a year or two ago and stored properly is genuinely new. One that has been on a shelf for six years is a different proposition.
It matters more than mileage on some cars, because rubber ages whether the car moves or not. The oils that keep the compound flexible work their way out over the years, and what is left hardens and loses grip in the wet long before the tread runs out. On a car doing a couple of thousand miles a year, the tread depth stays reassuring long after the compound has gone hard.
So the buying advice for a low-mileage car is different. Money at the very top of the range goes into a tyre that will time out before it wears out, and a good mid-range tyre replaced on the calendar often serves that car better.
Front tyres wear first, and hills and stop-start traffic make it worse. Anywhere with a lot of braking and turning, the South Circular included, chews the outer shoulders long before the middle of the tread goes. Whether it is Roehampton in rush hour or Upper Richmond Road at midnight, we answer. On the South Circular, day or night, Roehampton included, arrival across SW15 runs 30 to 60 minutes.
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Short journeys and long spells parked describe a great many cars here, from the streets off Putney High Street to the roads up towards the Heath, and that pattern ages tyres by the calendar rather than by mileage. The number worth reading is not the tread depth. It is the four digits on the sidewall.
A hatchback near Putney Vale had a spare that had never turned a mile and was older than the owner's tenure of the car. Full tread, no marks, and rubber hard enough to tap. It went in the skip.
A car kept off Lower Richmond Road for shopping and school runs had premium tyres with 5mm left and cracking round the bead. The owner had bought a compound that never got used. We fitted a sensible mid-range set instead.
A driver in East Putney asked what the date codes would be before agreeing to a set. It is a reasonable thing to ask and the answer was recent. Anybody who will not answer it has told you something.
On the sidewall, four digits inside a small oval, and sometimes only on one face of the tyre, so you may have to look at the inner side. The first two digits are the week and the last two the year, so 1224 means the twelfth week of 2024.
Yes, and we tell you unprompted if the stock is not fresh. A tyre a year or two old that has been stored indoors is new in every sense that matters. Age only counts once you are into several years.
Possibly, and it is a condition question rather than a depth question. Look at the base of the sidewall and between the tread blocks with a torch. Fine surface crazing is normal. Cracks that open up when you press them are not.
It ages exactly like the others and never wears, so it is usually the oldest tyre on the car by a wide margin. Worth checking while we are there, because the moment you need it is a poor moment to find it perished.
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