Ive never had a set of tyres last anywhere near as long as that
I have a set of tyres that were obviously fitted to the car about 7 years ago, the car then sat in a dark garage until recently...
Will the tyres have degraded enough to warrant binning them?
The tyres are ok.. nothing special, but would rather not have to buy new ones unless I have to at the moment
id just remove the wheels from the car so i could give the tyres a thorough checking over for any signs of degradation, or cracking. If they looked ok
then keep using them.
Ive never had a set of tyres last anywhere near as long as that
Really depends if they are good quality ones and were stored properly (like in the house, in black bags and unfitted. As it sounds like they were left
on at best they will now be well distorted even if they were kept pumped up. If you take them to a garage and put them on the balance machine I think
you will find they are no longer round. Personally I'd bin them, it’s just not worth the risk.
[Edited on 13/1/09 by Mr Whippy]
Hmm... Whippy that was kinda my thought as well...
They are, I believe, Van tyres anyway..... but at £80 a corner for anything decent... im not looking forward to this months credit card bill!
I have a friend of mine with a 1976 Alfa Montreal the tyres are original.
He keeps the car in a garage but still takes it out for the occasional drive and moves it around so as not to have flat spots.
When I had a look at the tyres I was amazed how good they were. Rather him than me though.
- Jim
[Edited on 13/1/09 by jimgiblett]
Second Mr Whippy.
My tyre trade contacts reckon 6 years max. no matter how they've been used, abused or not.
Consensus amongst the classic motorcycle brigade is "do you really want to risk a blow-out, especially on a performance machine?"
Majority of caravan accidents are thus caused (and who said "Good job" at the back?).
Cheers, Pewe 
Did you see the thread recently about the (IIRC Avon) tyres that were degrading severely in storage???
Personally I don't think it's worth risking it. I know my Yoko a539s are getting rather past it (7 years old now)... I haven't replaced
them yet but it won't be long. Hence I didn't feel too bad doing loads of doughnuts at the track day a few months back....
Evo magazine made this point in their tyre group test a a year or so back. I think they tested old stock tyres against brand new ones (same design) and noticed a performance difference between the new and old tyres (the old tyres had been stored but not used).
one problem with old tyres is that you can't see if the inside has degraded.
They can look ok but the inside can go all flaky.
The caravan club (yes I know! 
) recommend 5 years max before changing them.
Cheers
Mark
quote:
Originally posted by jimgiblett
I have a friend of mine with a 1976 Alfa Montreal the tyres are original.
He keeps the car in a garage but still takes it out for the occasional drive and moves it around so as not to have flat spots.
When I had a look at the tyres I was amazed how good they were. Rather him than me though.
- Jim
my bluebird now, 19 years old still has its orginal tyres on the steel rims that it came with from the factory. They look fine tbh and there's no
shaking but I've got new tyres on the alloys now. 
[Edited on 13/1/09 by Mr Whippy]