My lovely wife and I have four vehicles licensed and insured. One is "a toy". One is a half ton pickup which we only drive when we need a truck. One is kind of a beater which we use for shopping and parking lots. The fourth one is a clean basic vehicle with low miles which we use for longer trips. We don't put a lot of miles per year on any of them. Tire manufacturers suggest that seven years from the date the tire was made should be the safe life of the tire structurally regardless of miles. I selected a Uniroyal Tiger Paw Touring tire and emailed three suppliers. None of them could tell me the age of the tire they had for sale. I got the following reply from one manufacturer:

"Unfortunately, due to the number of warehouse locations we have, we are unable to pull and check the exact date of manufacturing on tires. We do however make sure all tires that are shipped are within the industry standard of 4 years or earlier".

If you have additional questions or if there is anything else we can help you with then please don't hesitate to reach out to us.

So if I buy tires from this one they could be four years old before I get them mounted and I have three years of use before they should be changed. The other two manufacturers got back and just said they couldn't tell me the age. I would know it when I got them.
I ended up buying them at a GM Dealer who said if I didn't like the dates when they ordered them they would send them back and get dates I would accept. Four years shelf life is absurd!

And from what I've read, it's worse (new tire age) on motorcycle tires.

If you could shop the big box tire stores and Sams, WalMart who carry Uniroyals, you can see the manufacturers date codes on the side walls. You can find tires less than a year old.

I got Mrs. Mikes last set from Sams club….IIRC there’s a letter code on them for mfg info

Just found this…
“To know the tire manufacture date, look at the last four numbers of the DOT code. The first two numbers tell you the week of manufacture, and the last two are the year. So, if the code is 2216, your tires were made on the 22nd week of 2016”

Hers are 4321….so 43week (Oct24) 2021

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
I got Mrs. Mikes last set from Sams club….IIRC there’s a letter code on them for mfg info

That is correct it is the DOT TIN number.
https://www.tirebuyer.com/educ...dentification-number

I find it hard to believe that a popular tire in a common size is going to sit in a warehouse for more a few months, let alone as long as 4 years, from its manufacturing date.

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
I find it hard to believe that a popular tire in a common size is going to sit in a warehouse for more a few months, let alone as long as 4 years, from its manufacturing date.

Agree, the Michelins for my F150 were backordered nationally for months before I actually could find some.