General tire life question
 

So ive got a set of 4 Bridgestone Potenza summer runflats sitting my garage.
They are the OEM tire from our 2017 BMW X1.

When we got the car in 2017, we were only a couple months way from the winter season so we needed to switch them out for something that actually works in the snow, and we've since swapped them out for some Continental DWS06 all seasons.

The plan was to use the Contis all season long until the winter traction becomes no good, then get a dedicated set of winter tires. We'd continue using the Contis for summer only until its time to replace them, in which case we'll just equip the Bridgestones since we have them available.

Well 7 years later and 76,000kms or so later, (We got it new, and it was our only car for about 2 years at first before we got a second car which means its usage started getting split with the second car) the Conti's still have life (the DWS indicator (Dry, Wet, Snow, the letters wear out over time indicating they are no longer usable for that road condition....S goes first, then W then D) still has the S intact) and we may instead just replace them eventually with an all weather tire (or at least replace them with the same or equivalent all seasons that actually works good in snow/ice) and not have to deal with the seasonal tire swap.

Kind of brings me back to the Bridgestone's. they've just been sitting in the same spot in my unheated garage this whole time (4 stacked on top of each other, individually wrapped in plastic bags but not sealed air tight...(just tied the end of the bags) and i started thinking about just selling them. With them being so old and unused it has come to my attention that these might potentially be bad now so i may not be able to sell them. Might have to just discard them.

My question is...anyone know what the general shelf life of unused tires are?
I've read about 5-6 years, perhaps more in ideal storage conditions.

6 to 10 years, depending whom you ask. I personally wouldn't drive 6 year old tires, but if you sell them with their age clearly listed I'm sure you'd find a buyer (even if it's just for a tire swing).

I just had the experience of driving on 7 year old tires recently. Would not recommend it, was scary at times.

I think the only way to know for sure is to inspect them and drive on them. I tried the stock tires on my FRS (Bridgestone Turanza EL-400-02) after 10 years in storage (kept in a dark but unheated garage) and they were ok. No visible cracks and the rubber still felt relatively soft. Grip levels were a bit worse than stock but nothing alarming. I would have daily driven them without a second thought.

That said, their value on the open market is probably minimal. I don’t think many buyers would be willing to take on that kind of risk on an unknown set of tires.

I don't know how it is up where you are but around here a lot of legit tire shops won't install anything that old due to liability.

Ya - ya - ya - blame the tires - :rolleyes:

The 9 year old tires on my FRS work just fine (they just get scary going backwards - :iono:).

To be fair, those tires sucked when they were brand new :lol:

Paul Walker agrees.

Too soon.

Time to replace them, old man.

If I started to replace things that are wore out around here, I wouldn't know where to stop - :sigh:

From when i spent some time researching various info & summarizing all that i found regarding topic, tires can last unexpectedly long .. but if they are unused and stored in proper environment. One can buy 5-7 years properly stored tire just fine, it won't be degraded more then 5-10% (just that tire development process never stops and obviously new tire models/generations might be noticeably better). Hence sometimes it might be good deal to buy "new/unused" "old" premium tires.

Just that .. if you had used them, even with little mileage, "clock starts ticking". Tires, when driven, mini deform on each rotation many times. Some additives to rubber start to dry out, rubber chemical compound changes/degrades. Water / sunglight / ambient temp fluctuations, thermal cycling when driving. For mounted and started to be used tire i tend to not use them >3 seasons even if there is lot of thread left. There are some shops that buy/sell used tires, or one can put up ad and sell them used for someone .. one can also drift them down quickly on track to justify throwing them out :), but if one cares about safety/performance one shouldn't save on most important aspect/part of car affecting that all.

Paul Walker crashed in Porsche Carrera GT due it having 9 year old just 3.5K miles driven tires. Certainly when one saves on not getting new ones, when old hockey pucks "still have legal thread wear left", crashes & dies, then one will get as famous as him?