I recently retired a 95 Intrepid that started as my wife'* car and was over the years passed down to my son, and then to my daughter. My nephew has an 01 Intrepid, so we scavenged some parts off our car for him. We realized the full size spare tire had never been used, and looked like new. After some research we decided to scrap the tire.

Take a look at this:

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4826897

Read this:

http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0...-of-aging.html

The scary thing is there are some unscrupulous tire places that are selling tires as new, that have a shelf life well over 6 years.

This article explains how to decode the numbers on the back of the tire to determine what the manufacture date was:

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/fo...sage572701/pg1

Kinda makes you want to go check the back of your tires, doesn't it?

wow..Well i have a good friend who works in a tire shop and he wouldnt purposly do this t ome but whos to say his boss'* wouldnt

there is some truth to this....

however, a tire that is stored properly(indoors, proper moisture levels, away from sunlight) ages differently than a tire that'* been sitting on a wheel on a vehicle that is always parked where sunlight is allowed to degrade the rubber.

long story short, i would trust 20 year old tires, assuming they were stored properly.

I usually scrap radial tires after 8 years, regardless.

It also probably depends on PSI too...i'll have to go check the bonnies tires while im stayin with my sister.

Usually they have DOT numbers on them, but it seems lately that they have not been putting the date code on there. I usually check that.