How old is my motorcycle tire

Few of us buy our tires directly from the manufacturer, and an unscrupulous distributor might sell you their new-old stock. It is a four-digit code which indicates the week and year of production. If you order tires online and mount them yourself, check the date code when you receive the tire. If you have a shop or dealer put them on, ask them about the date code. All of these things can age your new tire prematurely. Make it a habit to check your own tires at every oil change.

If you have ever swapped your own tires, you know exactly how a too-old tire fights you as you peel it off the rim, and how a nice fresh new tire, even with all that tread, is much more pliable. Imagine the difference between the way that dry old tire grips onto asphalt, or the way the knobs grab dirt, versus how a much softer, stickier tire does that same job.

Hardened rubber has lost a lot of its grip, and trying to make them last is a false economy. Locate the full DOT number on the sidewall of the tire. The number starts with "DOT" and is followed by 10 to 12 letters and numbers. The full DOT number is only on the outside of the tire.

The inside will have a shortened version with just a few letters or numbers. Note the last four digits of the DOT number. They will all be numerals, such as or These numbers let you decode the date of manufacture of the tire. The first two numbers indicate the week; the last two the year. For example, indicates the tire was produced in the fifth week of The aging process depends on the environment and usage conditions, type of rubber, purpose of the tire, etc.

But, make sure to remember a tire can be stored in a shop for 2 years or even more. The date code on motorcycle tires will help you choose a set that will last for as long as possible. Before , the date code was written in three digits, and was considered logical, as no tire would serve for longer than a decade. The first pair meant the number of the week, the third number meant the year of the decade.

It was much easier with the tires that were manufactured in the s, though. Aside from the 3-digit code, there was a small triangle placed on the sidewall.

The study was conducted because of a series of crashes due to tread separation in the early s, which made many major companies, including Ford, recall a number of their tires. After that, manufacturers started to put the hazard information in their manuals, encouraging people to check the date code.