Hey Jon,
Sidewall cracking as you describe is fairly common and is usually the result of heat/sun exposure when the tire is stationary.
For whatever reason, normal heating of the carcass of the tire when the vehicle is in motion is much more normal and acceptable to the longevity of the tire.
If the cracking is just in the surface layers of the rubber on the sidewall, or tread for that matter, it's not a big deal.
If those cracks are getting bigger, and noticebly starting to penetrate to the deeper layers of th tire, junk them.
They may last quite a while, or they may fail and blow out on you while you're pulling a trailer doing 70.
The way i gauge how deep the cracking is, if the rubber that is cracking feels/looks about as thick as a sheet or 2 of psper, no worries.
If the rubber is thicker than heavy construction paper, i'd look at dumping those tires.
The Adam Blaster
Two words, figure it out.....
> To: dakota-truck-moderator@bent.twistedbits.net
> From: jon@dakota-truck.net
> Subject: DML: Sidewall cracks (was: i might be a Dodge owner again!!!)
> Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 04:40:27 +0000
>
>
>
> Congrats on the new purchase! :-)
>
>
> "Mr. Plow" wrote:
>> LOL Well, i sell tires all day long, so i could easily convince him
>> that t etires were unsafe by the date-stamp on the sidewall.
>> Unfortunately, the tires look pretty darn good with no sideall or
>> tread cracking or anything. Plus, i can get tires so cheap through
>> work, that issue isn't a concern to me. ;)
>
>
> Sorry to hijack your thread, but you just reminded me of something
> I have been meaning to ask for a while. :-) Speaking of sidewall
> cracking, at what point should I start to worry about that? My Ram
> 3500 has cracks that basically form rings all the way around the tires
> on the sidewall, mostly near the bead area; some of them seem quite
> large. I assume they are the original tires, in which case they are
> only 7 years old or so, they started out small and seem to be getting
> bigger. It was a Florida/Georgia truck, so I don't know if there was
> any dry rotting at play there or not. Maybe if you get a moment at
> the BBQ, I can bug you to take a gander at them and let me know what
> you think. :-) (Or I suppose I could snap a digital photo.)
>
>
> --
> -Jon-
>
> .- Jon Steiger -- jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@jonsteiger.com -.
> | '96 Kolb Firefly, '96 Suzuki Intruder, Miscellaneous Mopars |
> `-------------------------------- http://www.jonsteiger.com --'
>
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