autox tires, How old is too old?

So I recently have been getting into autox. I use my daily driver, and have been going through my tires rather quickly. I have a 50 mile commute 5-6 days a week plus do alot of chasing around. So I came across a guy selling some used hankook ventus r-s3 mounted on wheels that I could sell to get the tires essentially free. Tires had some side wall wear thatd youd expect from doing some autox use. No cracking dryrot, and a good amount of tread left. I was thinking of using these tires to run the rest of the events around my area this year. Guy says hes had them for a while and sold the car. Im unsure of exactly how old they are, but just as a genral question how old of a tire would you not trust. 4 years old? older than that? Id assume theyd loose the stickyness, but Im out there more to learn at this point. Competivesness isnt my main concern.

I used to run on 5+ year old hoosiers...i mean cheap traction has its limitations. You can check the build date on them but i dont think rs3's are that old. That said concerning your last sentence, youll be golden

I think the experts at Tire Rack say that 7 years is the time to junk a tire, even if it looks fresh/spare tire. The rubber compounds deteriorate, and failure is much higher at that age. I did autocross a car with 9 or 10 year old autocross tires, and they still felt pretty sticky. I would be worried that they would fall apart on course if the owner of that car kept racing on them, though. You would be just fine running those for the rest of the season, and maybe even some of next season, too.

For autocross? Essentially as long as you want. Your failure is going to be more likely at 80+ on the interstate than 45 in a parking lot.

Go ahead and get the RS3s, even old and worn they'll be better than old all seasons.

Short of them rotting through it's entirely subjective. Each time they're used, each day/week/month/year, they get slower. How much that's important to you only you can say. A national championship in the line? Better be brand new or freshly heat-cycled. Auto-X just for the fun and care less what time you get? Use them for 10 years.

I had been using a set of Toyo's that are dated 2004 for the past 4-5 years just for track days. They have held up well until the first time I used them this year. The LF tire suffered a internal thread separation the first time I got them hot. The tire was no longer round so I finally trashed them. I liked those tires! I could drift the car with them where newer DOT race rubber either stuck or let go completely.

I guess I should add that I do events at the milwaukee mile for autox. They are very fast compared to our other miller park events, or any parking lot one. Anyway Im pretty sure ill pick up on these tires and just keep an eye on them in between runs. Thanks for all the input.

Had a driver at Saturday's autocross with a set of older, used Hoosiers that gave up the ghost on course. She limped off course with 2 flats. I don't know how old they were exactly, but about 5 years or so.

Autocrossed the Mustang 2 weeks ago on Azenis RT215's with a date code from the 25th week of 2004. They were awful, it was fun. Drifting EVERYWHERE.

(just bought new tires for it)

Hankook RS3s haven't existed long enough to be old. The tire itself only debuted three years ago IIRC. The only question is whether they are used up in terms of compound or tread.

RS3s are older than that. They were updated in 2014, but a little research shows reviews on them going back to 2009-ish.

I stand corrected. I was remembering the RS3 V2. If it has a 200 treadwear rating then it's 2012 or newer.

If it isn't the V2 then it's not that great and I wouldn't pay much money for them if anything. It's a V2 if it's 2014 or newer, which should show up on the DOT number on the sidewall with the last numbers being 14.

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

Depending on the size and condition they might be worth a little dough if they are V2s.