How new are your 'new' tyres?

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Fri 25 Jun 2021 12:50
How new are your 'new' tyres? - Brian Coates

Ordered 4 new tyres online from RAC Tyres to be delivered to, and fitted by, my local fitter.

All went well but on returning home, I noticed that three tyres had a DOT manufacture date of 07/21 (Feb 21) but the fourth tyre was 16/19 (Apr 19).

Contacted RAC Tyres and was told:

All RAC tyres are new. Tyres are classed as "brand new" if correctly stored for up to 3 years and "new" for up to 5 years. This is following BRV (German National Association for the tyre and vulcaniser trade). RAC Tyres are generally less than 18 months old.

So according to the RAC, it is possible that 'new' tyres supplied by them could be as much as 5 years old? I don't know, but 5 years (even more than 2 years as in my case) doesn't sound new to me.

Incidentally, RAC Tyres are a brand name of Colewood Automotive which also supplies tyres in the guise of Asda Tyres and etyres.

I guess the moral is to use a supplier where you can inspect the age of the tyres to be fitted before actually paying for them.

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Fri 25 Jun 2021 13:16
How new are your 'new' tyres? - alan1302

New really just means that something has not been used before - is a bit strange that 3 of the tyres are a lot newer than the others though...although as long as they been stored inside there won't be any issues with it.

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Fri 25 Jun 2021 13:42
How new are your 'new' tyres? - badbusdriver

As I have mentioned before on the forum, I decide which tyre I want beforehand, purchase them on Ebay, then have them fitted and balanced locally.

The relevant point being that on the Ebay listings, certainly for the tyres I have bought, it says when the tyre was manufactured.

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Fri 25 Jun 2021 14:01
How new are your 'new' tyres? - Brian Coates

Maybe they should use NOS (New - old stock) for something a few years old.

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Fri 25 Jun 2021 14:22
How new are your 'new' tyres? - badbusdriver

Maybe they should use NOS (New - old stock) for something a few years old.

NOS, to me anyway, means Nitrous Oxide Systems.................!

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Fri 25 Jun 2021 14:39
How new are your 'new' tyres? - Engineer Andy

New really just means that something has not been used before - is a bit strange that 3 of the tyres are a lot newer than the others though...although as long as they been stored inside there won't be any issues with it.

As HJ mentioned once, it's also dependent upon how the tyres are stored, to avoid them deforming under their own weight, which is probably why he stated at the time he normally would accept tyres that are at most 3-6 months (I think) old, so any 'poor' storage didn't have time to cause any problems.

1.5 - 2 years likely would, and the problem is that we won't know how they were stored at the fitter or their wholesaler.

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Fri 25 Jun 2021 19:33
How new are your 'new' tyres? - Brit_in_Germany

Although that 3 year/5year rule might be the view of the dealers (who want to minimize their losses), the ADAC (AA/RAC of old equivalent) has the view that 2 years is the limit for new tyres.

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