Tires: Tires, dot number, discount tire

Question
Hi Jack!
I've had some bad experiences with tires last year.
I replaced 6 tires on my motor home and 6 tires on my 350 Ford dully
I bought all of the tires from Discount Tire out of the twelve tires six of them failed with splits and tread separation and just looked rotted with less then 500 miles on them, I suspect the tires were sitting on a rack in a warehoused for several years before they sold them to me.
They were all Desert Dog tires and not dated.
Any way my question is I need to buy a set of 4 tires for a 2000 Windstar, 225/60-16 and I need to find out what brands are dated and what the date should be. The Windstar is used mainly for city driving and only about 5,000 miles a year.

jim

Answer
Jim, All tire are dated with the DOT number that is cured into the tire. It should be 4 numbers with the year 1st and the week next, so 0607 would be year 06 week 07. Most tires have a shelf life of about 2 years. It really depends on how they are stored.  The sun does a lot of damage to rubber due to the Ozone.  Thats why you see campers with the tires covered. The tread life out lasts the sidewall.