Every tyre has its age moulded into the sidewall as a four figure number inside an oval: two digits for the week it was built and two for the year. It is not hidden and it is not a trade secret, but almost nobody looks and hardly anyone is offered it. When a set is bought deliberately rather than in an emergency there is time to ask, and we will read the codes out before anything goes on the car.
What the number means is less dramatic than it sounds. Rubber ages through heat, sunlight, ozone and oxygen rather than through sitting on a calendar, so a tyre stacked indoors in the dark for two years is effectively the same as one built last month. A common size turns over quickly and tends to be recent. An unusual size may come from further down the chain and be older, which is worth knowing rather than worrying about. Age starts counting properly once the tyre is out in the weather with the car's weight on it.
A tyre change is painless when two things are true. You pick premium, mid-range or budget on the phone; we bring it to the car in SW2 at an hour you agreed to and fit it where it stands. The wheel comes off in Furzedown, not on a ramp in Balham. Pressures set before we leave Furzedown, and the same on the South Circular.
New tyres in Streatham is part of our wider mobile mobile tyre fitting cover. For new tyres in Streatham, call 07717 389637 or ask us for a quote.
A lot of cars around here cover very little ground. They live at the kerb on the SW16 streets, go up the High Road and back, and sit out in the weather the rest of the time. Those are exactly the tyres that reach the end of their life by age rather than tread depth, cracking around the shoulders with millimetres to spare.
A customer near Streatham Common asked what date the new set carried. We read all four off the sidewalls with them standing there. Two came from the same week and two from a month apart, which made no practical difference.
A low mileage car had tread almost up to the moulded bars and fine cracking right around both sidewall shoulders. Nothing about the depth said replace and everything about the rubber did. Age had finished those tyres long before the road got a chance.
Where the date genuinely counts is across an axle. Two tyres built months apart will have hardened slightly differently by the time they are half worn. Where stock allows, a pair from one run goes on one axle.
Look on the outer sidewall for a raised oval containing a long code. The last four digits are the ones that matter, week first and then year. It is stamped on one face only, so if you cannot find it, try the other side.
There is no legal limit for a car tyre and no single figure everyone agrees on. Stored properly and out of the light, a few years is unremarkable. Beyond that it is fair to ask where it has been, because sunlight by a shutter door changes things.
Not measurably, if it has been stored sensibly. What ages rubber is weather and work, and neither happens in a warehouse rack. Where the date earns its keep is at the far end of the tyre's life, telling you whether yours is five years old or eleven.
You can ask, and we will tell you honestly what has turned up. What we will not do is promise a specific week before the stock is in our hands. If what arrives is older than you are happy with, say so before it goes on.
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