How to Tell the Age of Truck Tires

Since the year 2000, tire manufacturers have been placing date stamps onto their tires to determine the age of the tires. Truck tires are no different. Finding and reading the date stamp is relatively easy, although it is on one side of the tire only, and locating it will depend on how the tire was mounted to the rim. Tires that do not appear to have this date stamp are most likely older than the year 2000 and should be considered for replacement regardless.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Inspect the sidewall of the tire and locate the DOT number. This number will start with the initials "DOT" and have a series of numbers and letters following it.

2. Ensure you have 10 to 12 digits of a DOT number. The date stamp will be the last four digits and only appear on one side of the tire. If the DOT tire number only consists of four to eight digits (not counting the digits of the letters DOT themselves) then you're going to have to crawl under the truck to locate the full DOT number on the inside sidewall of the tire.

3. Read the last four digits of the full DOT number. It should be numeric only. The first two digits are the week of the year the tire was manufactured and the last two digits are the year it was manufactured, starting in the year 2000. In other words, the number 5200 would indicate that the tire was manufactured in the last week of the year 2000. The number 1109 would indicate the tire was manufactured in the eleventh week of the year 2009.