Tires: auto tires, spare tire rack, auto tires

Question
i recently took over from a old family member a 1995 Pontiac Grand AM, with V6 engine. 13,000 miles. Front tires are couple yrs. old but the rear ones are the orginal ones. Car has alloy wheels and 205/55 R16.tires. I'm thinking i should replace the rear ones. almost 10 yrs. old. Ques- could i replace the rear ones with a  60 series tire with close to the same diameter? (if so,  i could put the new tires on the front if that would be better),.i dont need the high performance type tire, and 60 series might give a better ride., and/or put 60 series on all four. thanks for your help, barry

Answer
Barry,

IMHO 10 year old tires should be replaced.

The latest research I have seen seems to say that tires degrade in performance asa result of time, independent of how much they have been used.  Put another way, an old tire that has been on the spare tire rack on the back of an SUV has about the same degradeation in performance as a tire that has 50,000 miles.  While I have a bit of problem with this, my experience say there is some validity to this.  

My current recommendation is that 10 years is the limit, however, if you live in CA, AZ, NV, NV, TX, and FL, the limit is 6 years, with other states being in between 6 and 10 depending on how far north they are.  For example TN would be 8 years.

I think your are going to have trouble finding a 60 series tire of the same daimeter that has enough load capacity - it would be 195/60R16 - a rare animal.

P205/55R16's are quite plentiful and that would be cheaper in the long run.

Hope this helps.