Family Forum / Parenting / Mothers / July 2008

It was saying that any tire after 4 years old is a danger and shouldn't
be sold in stores but they are selling them anyway.

Tori

It still works here.  It seems to apply to all brands of tires sold in
the US.  The Brits have warned consumers as well.  

However, this has the print story as well, I think

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/7_on_your_side&id=6133554

and here:

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4822250&page=1

The codes are printed on the inside of the tire where you cannot
necessarily see them if the tire is on your car.

The last few digits of a code on the tire represent the manufacturing
date of the tire. The "459" on one tire means it was manufactured the
45th week of 1999. We found it at a Good Year store in San Mateo. Two
other tires we saw at the same store were six years old.

Our investigation also found tires older than six years being sold at
used tire shops. We found a 10-year-old tire at Tires and Brakes for
Less in Oakland; a nine-year-old tire at Hillside Tires and Brakes in
Daly City; and a seven-year-old tire at Rolling Stock Custom Wheels in
San Francisco.

Here is a site that has how to read the codes

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

When it comes to determining the age of a tire, it is easy to identify
when a tire was manufactured by reading its Tire Identification Number
(often referred to as the tire’s serial number). Unlike vehicle
identification numbers (VINs) and the serial numbers used on many
other consumer goods (which identify one specific item), Tire
Identification Numbers are really batch codes that identify the week
and year the tire was produced.

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration (NHTSA) requires that Tire Identification
Numbers be a combination of the letters DOT, followed by ten, eleven
or twelve letters and/or numbers that identify the manufacturing
location, tire size and manufacturer's code, along with the week and
year the tire was manufactured.

Since 2000, the week and year the tire was produced has been provided
by the last four digits of the Tire Identification Number with the 2
digits being used to identify the week immediately preceding the 2
digits used to identify the year.

Example of a tire manufactured since 2000 with the current Tire
Identification Number format:

5107 means the tire was manufacture in week 51 of 2007

Tires Manufactured Before 2000

The Tire Identification Number for tires produced prior to 2000 was
based on the assumption that tires would not be in service for ten
years. While they were required to provided the same information as
today’s tires, the week and year the tire was produced was contained
in the last three digits. The 2 digits used to identify the week a
tire was manufactured immediately preceded a single digit used to
identify the year.

DOT EJ8J DFM 408    
DOT EJ8J DFM 408     Manufactured during the 40th week of the year
DOT EJ8J DFM 408     Manufactured during the 8th year of the decade