Quote Originally Posted by smergy View Post
throw them out, anything more than 5 years is not worth riding on.
Damned if I could find that study, BUT, there was a show on this very thing a few years back (not sure if it was 60 Minutes, 20/20 or something similar) which was spurred from an incident of a father lending his minivan to his son and friends.

What happened is that they drove this minivan from somewhere in the US and came into Ontario, where the van had a tire failure and the the boy and his group of friends perished (I believe there were no survivors) somewhere on the 401 near Windsor (or London?). The show focused their investigation on the tires and why they failed, including how to tell when a tire was made via what was stamped on the sidewall (a series of numbers that tells you what week of what year the tires was made). What they found is that the tires were original and had failed due to age.

Essentially, as a result of this investigation, the "safe" lifespan of a tire is suggested at 6 years - anything over this you run the risk of catastrophic failure due to drying out of the compound, internal stresses, etc.

I'm in the same boat as the OP here; my 'Stang has her original rubber from 2004 (made in the 42nd week), with a total of 37,000 km on them. I need to change them out or accept the risks that under the right (wrong?) driving circumstances they may blow out as they are not the tires they once were...

In short, throw out those tires and get yourself some new rubber.