old tire safety

[cprince]

the tires on my '87 BMW 325e have many tiny cracks along the side walls so I'm guessing that they are old. They still hold air, though, and the threads are still good. I've heard somewhere that tires older than two years old are not safe, but I haven't found any concrete studies of this. Changing them would cost around $300 and I'm a little tight on money at the moment. I can either change the suspension components(shocks, struts, control arms, tie rod ends, bushings, etc...), which come out to be around $300 total for parts or change the tires, but not both at the same time. Which one should I change first?

Edit: I use this car mostly for city driving with speeds below 55mph.

 

[NutBucket]

What's the age of the tires. There's a code on the sidewall.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=11

Generally speaking, 6 years about the longest you'll want to use a tire.

 

[Eli]

We bought an old '79 Buick LeSabre for $300 once. It had the same problem you describe.

One day while my brother was driving down the highway, the tread completely separated from the tire and came off.

Still held air though, and he drove home on it like that. It was pretty weird seeing the steel belts like that, with the tire still full of air.

 

[LordMorpheus]

Rubber will rot if left sitting, and leave the tire susceptible to failure even if the tread looks good.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Tyres are your primary safety component.

 

[hanoverphist]

We bought an old '79 Buick LeSabre for $300 once. It had the same problem you describe.

One day while my brother was driving down the highway, the tread completely separated from the tire and came off.

Still held air though, and he drove home on it like that. It was pretty weird seeing the steel belts like that, with the tire still full of air.

same thing happened on my old 76 impala about 8 yrs ago. the tires were pretty old, and az sun is pretty unforgiving on tires. on the way back from lunch i just saw 4 vehicles on US60 next to each other changing tires, pretty weird.

 

[thescreensavers]

read the DOT code it will tell you how old it is.

 

[cprince]

it's manufactured in the 41st month of 2001. So I guess I'll get new tires before doing the suspension work.

 

[7window]

replace

 

[vshah]

no question, replace the tires.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

it's manufactured in the 41st month of 2001. So I guess I'll get new tires before doing the suspension work.

That would be 41st week...

So nearly 10 years old.

Replace them.

 

[Zenmervolt]

At about 6 years old, the rubber has hardened a decent amount and the tire isn't able to provide the same grip levels that it did when it was new. It's not really "unsafe" though.

Even at 10 years old a tire is unlikely to fail catastrophically, but by that point it has lost a meaningful amount of grip and you'll want to replace it for reasons of traction and stopping ability.

ZV