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I saw a news piece about tread separation on older tires, so I thought I'd start a discussion since maybe people aren't aware of this. I don't know how or if higher pressure tires would affect this, but it may be something to think about, for those running higher pressure on older tires.

Here is a link to the news article I saw.
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/consumer&id=6133067

Excessive heat is the major enemy of tires, and heat builds up most in under-inflated tires.

Tire manufacturing date is already 'encoded' on tire sidewalls. Here's the code:

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=11

If you are buying them off the rack, this info may help you pick the youngest. Five years is some peoples' max safe tire age.

DAS

So is it not possible for over inflated tires to contribute to a condition where tread separation would occur? Seems that way, since that would be the opposite of under inflated tires, but i'm not 100% sure on that.

I guess it's just you and me here, Koreberg. The only risk I have read for hard tires is a possible increase in impact damage if you drive fast over something really rough. But this seems apocryphal. When it comes to inflation pressure extremes, the only thing we know for sure: When you underinflate tires and drive them fast under typical loads, they heat way up and sometimes fail.

Tire safety means *a Lot* to me, and I will always be happier close to te sidewall max. Happier still, when making frequent pressure measurements. That's how we know what's going on.

DAS

When the Bridgestone/Firestone/Ford Exploder issue came up, even the courts got confused with the "data." The OEM tires were experiencing tread separation at high speeds, heavily loaded, with the OEM recommending a fairly low PSIG. But, the tire manufacturer lost the majority of the court issues.

Apparently, tread separation can be a manufacturing issue. A Chinese manufacturer of "inexpensive" tires, has experienced a lot of tire failures, that are assumed to be poor manufacturing, and not related to PSIG.

I only have 10,000 miles of experience at higher PSIG. I like it, but it is a bit rougher at 65 PSIG. Later this year I plan to bring that down to manufacturer recommendations, and see what kind of MPG hit I take.

One thing you can do if you are concerned about tire life is use nitrogen.

What happens is, the air (oxygen + others) is slowly forced through the rubber and escapes to the atmosphere. That is why you have to raise your pressure back up occasionally.

With nitrogen, it does not go through the tire as quickly, and it does not react with the rubber in the tire. Since as a hypermiler, you are running even higher pressures, this could drastically increase the life of your tire.

Also, don't scrub the outside of the tire very often. I know this sounds strange, but the chalky appearance is oxidized rubber, that forms a barrier on the outside of the tire to keep more oxygen from getting in.

Michelin recently released a tire cleaning compound that is supposed to refresh the rubber, without making it more vulnerable to oxygen.

I know many tire stores will fill with nitrogen for free now when buying tires, but some may charge if you just want to change the air in your tires.

Chris, is it the oxygen or the sun that causes the damage (aging of the tire)?

Tire expiration isn't much of a problem when you drive 32,000 miles a year.

It's more a problem of budgeting for new tires...