Tires - How old is too old?
 

Gents, I've got a set of Michelin PS2s in stock 997.1TT sizes mounted on a set of wheels that had been sitting on a, sparingly driven, garaged car for the last 5 years. The tires were manufactured mid Sept 2011 and have been driven ~10K miles on the street and never on the track. They still look and feel good, have lots of tread depth, and show no visible signs of rotting or cracking.

I don't use Pilot Sports and therefore don't have any experience with them. Michelin recommends that they be inspected by a professional at 5 years and older but they'll probably look for any reason to try to sell me a new set of tires. My question, for those of you who have experience with Pilot Sports is would you recommend keeping the tires and using them for street and an occasional trip to the drag strip or is 5 years venturing into replacement time?

Thanks for any advice.

If stored properly tyres are good for 6 years if on maximum thread depth. If worn low on depth they are overly-hard and dangerous in rain. So if thread depth is good, put them on and trash the life out of them. Having said this 10K? At that mileage mine are shot. So perhaps you need to bin them!

They've been mounted and stored inside since they were new. I was reading reviews of pilot sport 2 tires online and people claim to be getting 20K-30K out of these tires. One reviewer claimed to get 60K, which is a bit hard to believe. 10K doesn't seem like a lot of mileage out of PS2s, is that what you're running? I got more than 10K out of my last set of NT05s.

10-15K miles and my rears are shot. Fronts are ok for twice that. Everyone I know gets about the same mileage out of PS2's. People who get more probably disconnected their turbos. :-). Are you sure PS2 reviewers were talking about PS2's on a 996 turbo? And as far as the 60K statement is concerned; wrong car for the wrong person. :-).

Porsche says 6 years is the replace by age for the tires on its sports cars. I have not seen where Porsche has offered different number of years for the Pilot Sports.

At 5 years old the tires are getting close to their replace by age.

(As an aside I have no experience running Porsche tires anywhere near 6 years. My usage delivers around 20K miles from the rear tires, and double that from the front tires. My annual miles is around 20K miles with my 2002 Boxster and 18.6K miles with my 996 Turbo. So the rear tires get replaced on average every year, the fronts about every 2 years.)

If the tires show no signs of cracking or other signs of age they might (might) be ok to continue to use on the street but for just the time until they hit 6 years of age.

However, I would think on the track you'd want tires in which you don't have to have in the back of your mind any concern about the tires while you are blasting down the track.

I second Macster. Yearly to year and a half turnaround. Never had 6 year old tyres on my turbo nor would I want to. Especially not north of 150mph. Rubber ages and hardens!

I don't have time to drive my cars much. In the last year I've put about 900 miles on my 996TT and about 100 miles on my 997TT in the 6 months that I've owned it. I'll never wear out a set of tires due to mileage, for me it will always be a replace due to age situation. The tires in question look great but, as being discussed, that can be deceptive. Unless there are compelling reasons to the contrary I suppose I'll be shopping for tires.

In your case I guess, bin them in the 6th year. ;)

I'd try knocking around with them a little bit, but wouldn't be going on a long voyage or above 80 MPH on them. Especially in a turbo.

My wear is typical with Terminator.. rears are TOAST at 15-18K miles. Fronts last about 1.5X that..

On Pilot Super Sports, Michelin engineers I have talked to said no more than 5 years on a set of these no matter how good they look from the outside.

When I read this thread I cant help but think of the fact that the Carrera GT Paul Walker was killed in wore its original tires.

^^Agreed. Play it safe and bite the bullet on a new set.

^^ Exactly.

New York inspections only allow tires to be unto 4 years old, if any older car can be failed by just looking at the date on the tires. After 4 years under good lighting you'll see dry rot starting.