How to Tell the Age of a Commercial Truck Tire Casing
A truck tire casing is the body of the tire, not including the tread. Casings can have new tread added through a retreading process, extending the useful life of a casing and saving the trucking company money when compared to the cost of buying a new tire. An older tire casing may be unsuitable for retread because older casings can have internal damage and rot that will result in a dangerous retreaded tire.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Locate the Department of Transportation number on the casing. The DOT number will be printed on the front of the tire. The number starts with the letters DOT, followed by a series of 10 to 12 letters and numbers.
-
2
Find and write down the last four digits of the DOT number. The digits will all be numerals such as 3207 or 1510.
-
-
3
Decode the manufacture date of the tire using the first two digits as the week of manufacture and the second two as the year of manufacture. For example, a manufacture code of 3207 means the tire was manufactured in the 32nd week of 2007. There are 4.3 weeks in a month, so he 32nd week of the year is in the eighth month, or August.
-
4
Subtract the manufacture date from the current date to obtain the age of the tire casing. In October 2010, the example tire was 3 years, 2 months old.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
The full DOT number is only printed on one side of a tire. If you find DOT plus only a couple of letters, flip the tire over for the complete number.
Tires manufactured before the year 2000 will have a three-digit manufacture date with two digits for the week and one for the year.
Truck tire manufacturers warranty new truck tires for five or six years from the manufacture date. Tire casings older than six years should be inspected carefully before being retreaded. Bridgestone Bandag Tire Solutions--a major tire retreading company--recommends electronic inspection such as X-ray or ultrasound to check for unseen casing damage.
References
- Photo Credit tire image by timur1970 from Fotolia.com
