Beer bottles have them. So do tubs of margarine and cans of applesauce. But tires have neither an expiration date nor a manufacturing date. Yet old tires are dangerous too and federal safety regulators are being asked to require a date that tells consumers a tire's true age.
SRS Inc., an auto safety research firm, has petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to require easily readable creation dates on car and truck tires.
SRS President Sean Kane says that as of November of 2004, his group has documented 37 fatalities and 35 serious injuries associated with age-related tire tread separations. In many of these cases, the tires were unused spares and showed no signs of degradation.
Aged tires are often unsuspectingly put into service after having served as a spare, being stored in garages or warehouses, or simply used on a vehicle that is infrequently driven. In many instances these tires show no visible sign of deterioration, and absent any visible indicators, tires with adequate tread depth are likely to be put into service regardless of age.
The SRS petition cites a crash in San Bernardino, Calif., in July of 2003 involving a 1997 Toyota 4Runner. Three weeks after a Toyota dealer performed service on the vehicle, rotating an original spare tire onto the right rear wheel, the tread separated at highway speed, resulting in a rollover. A young mother died from head injuries in that incident.
Kane noted in a filing with NHTSA in 2003 that the British Rubber Manufacturers "strongly recommended" that used tires should not be put into service if they are over six years old and that all tires should be replaced 10 years from their date of their manufacture. It also notes that environmental conditions like exposure to sunlight and coastal climates, as well as poor storage and infrequent use accelerate the aging process.
The SRS petition asks that the agency take three interim steps to address the tire age problem:
• a Consumer Advisory alerting the public to the hazards,
• that NHTSA seek specific information from the tire and vehicle manufacturers that will help with further evaluation of the problem, and
• that NHTSA require a date of manufacture molded in both sides of the tire in a non-coded fashion.
NHTSA has 120 days to reject or accept the petition.
