Old Tires?
 

I've been reading about how old tires, even though low mileage, may have been the cause of a famous celebrity's fatal accident in a Porsche, and wondering how often those of us who don't drive our Cobras that often should replace tires. My Yokohama Avids are about 8 years old with about 3000 miles on them. Assuming I might need to replace them, what is the best 15" street tire? I don't need the fancy Goodyear Billboards, high dollar Avons, or MT drag tires, something comparable to the Avids.

What size wheel do you have? If 15's, I love the MT SR's . Reasonably priced and very sticky. Bought mine in early summer.

Phil

15" Trigos

2nd the Mickey Thompson Sportsman SR's. I'm very pleased with mine. Reasonably priced, certainly compared to Avons and Billboards. Good mileage, good traction, I like the tread. I run 10x26x15 fronts, 12x26x15 rear. Best price I found was Summit. No tax, free shipping. Have your favorite tire jockey mount and balance.

Thanks for the feedback. Do ya'll think my old tires are really unsafe?

I have the MT ST's on mine and I love them. 8 year old tires.......... change them

What is the difference between the MT SR and MT ST?

Look here: Mickey Thompson Performance Tires & Wheels

I run the ST's on my car and have been quite satisfied.

Ted

For putting around no, but if you intend to mash the gas or pull more than about .4G then yes.

Hell yes, they're unsafe!!!!
 

For a while I drove on 20 year old BFG's (had no idea they were that old)...the rubber was so hard that the front tires just separated. One blew while I was on the freeway going through Houston, TX...it was so destroyed that I hired a tow truck to get me to the nearest Discount Tire. The other "delaminated", for lack of a better term, while it was sitting in the mechanic's garage waiting for its turn on the rack...remember "retread" tires and how that "retread belt" would delaminate from the body of the tire and all that would be left intact was the carcass? That's what it looked like...so, yeah, I'd say it's dangerous to drive on old tires, for sure!!!

I'll not drive my replica again without new rear tires, too...regrettably, I had no good options at the time the two front tires self-destructed, and so I put new BFG/TA's on the front...but I'm going with M/T's on the rear wheels when I get back down to TX at Thanksgiving. I'll also try to drive it back to Kansas at that time, which will be a VERY cold two day trip if the weather is bad (I'm taking multiple layers of very nice insulated "inner wear", good gloves and a snowmobile suit, but if it's cold my face will probably get frostbitten without some sort of ski mask.) The BFG/TA's on the front will just have to last for a little while, I guess...but they'll get replaced soon as I can!

It's times like this that I wish I could have afforded a GT40 replica, at least those can be made into 4-season vehicles. We're definitely at the mercy of the elements in our roadsters :eek:

Cheers!

Dugly :cool:

How about some help, Ted? I looked at the info in your link and it was all about drag slicks, off road tires and truck wheels (?). I couldn't find anything describing the difference between the SR and the ST models.

If I had to guess, I'd suggest SR stands for "Street/Race" and ST stands for "Street/Touring"...but that's all it is, just a guess.

Cheers!

Dugly :cool:

Foolishly, I ran my original BFG's for 18 years. I would occasionally autocross the car, and I was surprised at how easily I could spin the back tires or slide the entire car. Finally, I came to my senses that the tires were 'way too old and bought a new set of Mickey ST's. There was an instantaneous big-time increase in grip. The tire store guy bought my BFG's from me for $10 apiece for his trailer queen show car and used them a couple more years. I keep my car, including the tires, completely covered when not in use. I think that helps extend the life of the tires.

My approach now, however, is...wear them out before they rot out.

Depending upon whom you ask, you should replace tires every 6 to 8 years regardless of miles. Tire Rack.com has a section on this topic.
Over time, the sidewalls breakdown loosing the ability to support weight.
The tires look fine and have low mileage; but is it worth the risk?

The MT ST's have a different tread pattern than the SR's. Both are water friendly. SR's have a softer compound and really hookup for launchs and twisties. Avons are the best if the check book is not a problem. I just replaced my old SR's just short of 8 years and approximately 13,000 miles. Speed rating better than ST's also. Summit is the best pricing and availability.
Gary

Dugly,

When you click on that link it takes you to the M/T website and you should see photo's of five different tires on the opening page. If you click on the picture of the SR or the ST, it takes you to the specification page for that tire and also has a short video for each tire.
I have had both the SR's and ST's on my car. I think the SR's offered a little more traction, but I wasn't satisfied with the stance I was able to achieve with those tires. I changed to the ST's and now have the stance the way I want it and the traction is acceptable. I have autocrossed with them and they worked pretty well for a street tire. The SR's I had on the car were the 28x12Rx15 and 26x10Rx15. My ST's are 255/60R-15 and 295/50R-15.

Ted

I like my M/T drag radials. The car hooks!

My thoughts as well my tires are 20+ years old.

BFG TA's are bad tires when they are new!

I wish MT would make the ST Radials using the SR compound.

Frank

I put Cobra GT's on mine. Supposedly they are made by MT and are the same.