Tires: useful life of tire, nancy nancy, tire guy

Question
Our second-hand 2006 Volvo came with 2005 tires. We just blew out the tire on I-89 and both the AAA guy who put on the spare and the tire guy at Walmart said all the tires show dry rot and need replacing. My husband says it is all malarky by a guy selling tires. Your opinion would be most welcome! Nancy

Answer
Nancy,

Recent bulletins from the tire industry indicate that tires degrade simply due to time.  The age of a tire is important even if the tire is unused.  There some disagreement over how to best express this age limitation, but my take is:

If you live in a hot climate (AZ, CA, NV, TX, and FL) then the limit is six years.  If you live in a cold climate (MN, ND, WI, MT, etc), then the limit is 10 years.  States in between are  ..... ah ........ in between.

So depending on where you live, you have either past those limits or are approaching those limits.