Quote:
Originally Posted by geeteeohguy
Bias ply tires are not steel belted, and don't explode and come apart like steel belted radials do. They can blow out, but tend to cause no damage to the car. I've run 45+ year old bias ply tires on cars in the past with no issues. And 20+ year old Goodyear ST radials. The new steel belted radials are not the same quality rubber used in the past due to the Green Agenda, and deteriorate much quicker. So, I would be inclined to run older bias ply tires with no worry as long as they were not degraded, but it's a tougher call with steel belted radials. I have a friend who is running 74 year old Wards Riversides on his '26 Ford, but it never sees over 40 mph.
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When I was young (late 50s, early 60s) it wasn't at all uncommon to see bias ply tires that were all weather checked on a street driven car, likely at least 20 years old. Tire companies were still using some latex based compounds in them at the time of manufacture. Firestone had on the sidewalls of some of their tires, "Gum Dipped", so they were still using some natural latex compounds in the rubber.
There is a huge difference between how well that rubber stood up, as compared to todays green, cheap overseas, synthetic rubber. All you need to do is compare how old weather stripping, and windshield wiper blades hold up now, as compared to 20-30 years ago.
It was also addressed as to whether Michelin used better materials in their tires. As long as I've been around cars Michelin has always made a premium product, but along with the better materials, engineering, and labor, they do get a premium price for their product.
When I worked as a road service mechanic on construction site equipent, the company I worked for would replace the OEM tires with Michelin on all the service trucks. I knew it was costing them a premium for the better tires, so I asked the owner why he insisted on Michelin. He explained since we dealt in service what he might lose in not being able to handle a service call due to a tire failure of a cheaper brand might cost, and the customer him many times in down time, over what the difference in tire prices was. When you have 20 bricklayers, and laborers standing around because of a machine breakdown, it gets expensive real quick. His philosophy was overall the mileage we got out of better tires, plus downtime, more than made up for the premium price of the Michelin tires. An example of penny wise, and pound foolish.