Eeeeee My trailer tires were 18 years old.

So a couple of weeks ago I realized I hadn't put new tires on my single axle  trailer in who knows how long and decided to rectify it. Took a look at the date code  " 02" talk about dodging bullet.

It's not often you run into tires that are eligible to vote.

We put tires on the club's autocross equipment trailer last year and they were probably that old.

While loading up last weekend I looked at the spare, in the trailer.  Didn't notice a date mark but the wheel is rusting through and the tire looks like that old lady telling the story in Titanic.

Trailer tires are usually pretty cheap, compared to what the trailer is hauling.

Ran into this just last week on son's boat trailer. It only gets used twice a year to put boat in in spring and take out in fall. The rest of the time it's in the boathouse out of the water. He was going to have boat worked on so was pulling trailer to ramp and noticed the trailer bouncing a lot. I went to see what I could find out and found two of the four tires were bulging out of round by a 1 1/2" or more. Closer look showed tread separations down to steel core and very heavy checking in sidewalls. Found fourteen inch trailer tires for about $60 each. Probably pays to keep tires covered to protect from UV as that is a factor in tire life.

I bought top of the line (paying for my guilt) and it only set me back $350 including tax and road hazard. 

Tom1200 said:

I bought top of the line (paying for my guilt) and it only set me back $350 including tax andr oad hazard. 

Well if the sons trailer got used more probably would have advised better tires. I think they quote Carlyle at about $80.00 each.

Shop truck we had at USF for the FSAE team had tires that were old enough to just have a single digit date code.  It was 9.  That was in 2015 or so.

For budding engineers, I had to use a lot of small words to explain why it was a bad idea to drive with those tires.

Checked my trucks spare for the first time last week and it was the original tire with a DOM of 1401. Yikes!

Remember to give the bearings a courtesy check while you're at it. Bearings and tires are the two things that leaves trailers stranded. Bearings being a little tougher t fix on the side of the road. 

Very true even though all my trailers have Bearing Buddies or equivalent I like to remove hubs clean bearings and old grease out of the hub then inspect everything. I then had pack bearings and assemble. 

I actually did the bearings not to long ago.

I do bearings every fall on my boat trailers.  Keeps the salt from eating them alive over the winter.  I also keep an extra hub with bearings in the truck when trailering.  I hope I never need it, but it is cheap insurance

Funny this popped up, I just had 16-year-olds replaced this week on my ATV trailer.

I picked these wheels up off of CL a few months ago and tossed them on the car to see how they looked. I knew they had old snow tires but the front pair are '89 and the rear pair are '91, they came off of an 89 951 S so I'm gonna say they were put on when he swapped to Clubsports back in the day and kept these for his winter tires. 30 years!

My dad's firetruck still has the original front tires, from 1948.  Rear tires were replaced in the '70's.  About 10,200 total miles.  

I think the tires on my 1931 Model A are original. They have no date code. 

The orginal tires are on my 62 Honda 90 but don't ever get that out of 2nd gear.