After much deliberation and research I got a full set of new boots for the car today, Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 3’s. However, upon closer inspection the manufacture dates are all over the shop..

Newest is 3417 so end of August 2017 bit the oldest is 2416 so mid June 2016.. they’re not even the same across the front and rear axle.. and the rears (different size) are made in Slovenia while the fronts are made in Germany. The biggest manufacture date differential is 14 months across the rear on a RWD car..

Am I being unreasonable to expect an expensive set of car tyres to have been manufactured at approximately the same time?

Black circles (not where I purchased from) reckons anything up to 5 years is fine for retailing as “new” 😯

Why are you concerned? Buying something new doesn’t imply anything about the production date. Tyres do a have a shelf life and they do age but not fast enough that you’ll be able to notice any difference.

I’m concerned mainly on account of being a pure fanny and checking the production date of all 4 tyres with a torch like the lunatic that I am.. seriously though, I know rubber perishes and a few months difference I probably wouldn’t have battered an eyelid st but over a year across 1 axle seems a lot.

FFS!!! Get a grip!

I think I see what you did there

If you get a puncture do you replace all 4 tyres?

When is your next track day?

I learned tyres have production dates on them. Gonna check mine when I get home.*

*lols not really.

If you got them from a retail group they might have sourced them from different branches rather than bought in as a set .

Reading this just made me tyred

If I had taken enough care selecting tyres that I knew the model type as precisly as you do and then likely paid substantially more than for some standard tyres I would be bothered yes.

Send an email to someone senior in the company give it go at getting them changed but dont hold out much hope.

Next time just buy some Nexens and worry about something else altogether. Its just about getting from a to b.

Well they are brand new as in unused and

They are also well within limits for elastomers standards for a multi million dollar pressure critical operation.

I think they will be fine on a car for 20-25000 miles .

Unless of course the eagle F1 is going on your mercedes F1 car and your racing for the champs .. then I might be concerned about the balance.

If your driving so on the edge that you find the limits of a tire made in one country Vs anoter then you need to slow down 😉

Or you could try returning them and buy at retail instead of discount tire world black circles ….who I wouldn’t say were a reputable retailer – but they are cheap so I can live with it.

Can you ?

I think I know where your coming from, I bought a set of these and love them 225/45 r17 so grippy compared to the cheap wankong chinese that were on it with loads of tread still on them
2 years down the line still have the Goodyears but lots of tiny wee cracks on the rubber between the grooves and still maybe 4mm
tread
May do what i did as a youngster and slide around the roundabouts on an icy or damp tarmac

Trail rat is absolutely spot on. If you are really bored google ISO 2230 and you can learn all about rubber storage guidelines – chances of Black Circles actually storing the tyres as per ISO 2230 may be debatable though….
In reality I really wouldn’t worry.
PS your tyres will fall into Group A.

Thank you for the replies all. Really does sound like I need to get a grip..!

The good news is the tyres are exceptional in the rain compared to the Michelin pilot super sports that come off it. Seem to be a bit quieter too, not to mention £200 cheaper for the set!

Ahem

Black circles (not where I purchased from)

The good news is the tyres are exceptional in the rain compared to the Michelin pilot super sports that come off it. Seem to be a bit quieter too,

Probably because they are new. I bet you’d think the same if you went back to the Michelin’s next time.

Perhaps but the Michelin’s were more performance/track focussed with much less grooving and more contact area.. so probably a bit of both (new vs old and different style of tyre)

hopefiendboy – Member
Reading this just made me tyred

I just feel a bit deflated.
Maybe I’m biased.

* holds up hand as a fellow tyre geek*

I wouldn’t worry about 12 months difference between manufacturing dates on tyres that young, well within guidelines. What I would be concerned about is that the tyres are from different factories.

Years ago I had to replace all 4 tyres on my old Fiesta to get it through the MOT in a hurry (2 laps of the ‘Ring really wear your tyres out! Not the best idea 4 days before the MOT is up…) and all I could get was a set of Pirelli P4000’s. These were made in 2 different factories, on in Hungary and one in Italy. Not a problem there except they were made to different specs in the compound. The Hungarian ones were very hard and useless in damp conditions whereas the Italian ones were great in all conditions. It took a few weeks for me to figure out why the car was handling badly, only finding out after reading something on a Fiesta forum. As I was skint (MOT was expensive) I had to put the Hungarian ones on the front and the Italian one on the back otherwise the car was lethal, sliding unpredictably in damp and wet conditions. The fronts were still useless , think ditch-finder, so I fired an email off to Pirelli UK who sorted me out with a replacement pair of Italian ones for a nominal fee (think it was £30) to cover the use I’d already had out of the Hungarian ones. The car was spot on after that and they lasted a good 20k without issue.

Might be worth firing an email to Goodyear with your concerns, they can say whether they’re fine or not.

Thanks milky that’s really useful cheers. Couple of minutes to email Goodyear is worth it just for my curiosity! I knew there would be other tyre geeks out there 😀

And I thought STW had hit peak fanny. Nice work lads

So how old are the brake linings on the car? They could have been sat on a shelf for just as long if not longer. Any component in the car could be a couple of years old but they time they get out to their owner. The ‘problem’ here is you’ve just got visibility of how old the tyres are. If the ‘birth date’ was not on the sidewall you’d not even be considering it.

You’ll be fine. Forget it. They’re consumable items.

There’s a reason the date stamp was introduced: tyres degrade with age and how they are stored. There was a test done by one of the motoring shows that tested a 10 year old spare tyre that had never been used and kept in the boot so it looked brand new. 20 mins into the motorway simulation at 70mph it exploded.

Tyres are your only contact with the ground, it’s not worth taking any risks with their safety.

I think you’d have grounds for complaint if the tyres were mismatched on the same axle. Different front and rear wouldn’t bother me, unless they were actually vastly different.

On tyres one only needs to be concerned with the Best Before date.

On tyres one only needs to be concerned with the Best Before date.

Don’t think you’re supposed to eat them…

When my dad took his car in for a service recently they pointed out that the spare was one of his original tyres, the car was a week short of it’s 18th birthday!

I remember when my dad asked me to replace a bald tyre on his car with the spare. Then after putting the bald tyre in the boot I pulled out my work knife and sliced it.

He went potty. “What the **** did you do that for, what am I going to do if I get a puncture” I explained that it was illegal to have a bald spare and he could get three points for it.
And when he asked why I said for exactly the reason you just said, you would use it if you got a puncture.

Around the turn of the century I had a Honda Civic 1.8Vti which needed two new front tyres, so I went to the well known tyre emporium just north of Winchester and bought two Michelins. As I drove away from the place I noticed that when I accelerated it pulled to the right and when I backed off it turned towards the kerb. Subtle but noticeable. When I got home I checked to see if the tyres were what I had asked for and it turned out one was made in France, the other in the UK. Same tyre pattern. I phoned up the said tyre place, who to their credit said bring the car back and I demonstrated the phenomenon to a manager and they agreed to swap one of them so they were both from the French batch they had. Car ran straight as a die ( also demonstrated to the manager).
He said they might have different compounds hence the issue on a (fairly) powerful front wheel drive car

With these quite expensive tyres these days, when you puncture them should you fill them with that gunk ?

I have done, and been told the tyres ruined and need a new tyre because they can’t fix a puncture if you’ve used the gunk.. is this correct?

so they were both from the French batch they had. Car ran straight as a die ( also demonstrated to the manager).

Yes but surely it then wanted to drive on the right!

except you cannot get three points for a bald spare tyre…
only for a tyre fitted to the car
(however, yes you were right to encourage him to get a replacement)

I was under the impression that a spare (if it’s fitted to, or inside the car) must be legal.
However its not a legal requirement to actually have one.
I could be wrong of course . . .

EDIT: i am wrong.
No requirement to have one, or for it to be legal if in, but not fitted to the car.

I was under the impression that a spare (if it’s fitted to, or inside the car) must be legal.

If that was the case, it would be illegal to drive to a tyre shop in order to have a new tyre fitted to a wheel that is in the boot and has a worn tyre on it. It would also be illegal to drive to a race circuit in a street legal car with a set of racing slicks mounted on wheels in the boot.

No requirement to have one, or for it to be legal

I believe it is an mot fail if the spare is not legal. Obviously easily fixed by taking it out before the mot

The racing slicks thing is interesting. They are tyres you are using for extra grip but you can’t use them on the road to get to the track. On a similar note bald tyres give more grip in the dry, although they will be pretty lethal in the wet.

With these quite expensive tyres these days, when you puncture them should you fill them with that gunk ?

we had a puncture repaired at a garage recently and were told the same thingm. If we had used the gunk he would need to have replaced the tyre instead of repairing it. Don’t know why though