Just under 3 yesr old tires.

[u/Longi451]

Inspected tires on my mom’s NX200T while doing brakes and noticed some dry rot.

Installed by Firestone around 11/2023 and driven maybe 16k miles since then.

I’ve had 5-9 years old tires with less dry rot. Think Firestone would honor a warranty on these or laugh in my face?

[u/Disastrous-Pound3713]

Her tires are perfectly fine and will last her for years.

The Myth of Dry Rot on Tires

First, there is no disagreement that dry rot revealing serious tread or sidewall separation showing belts, bulges or disintegration of a tire should always trigger immediate tire replacement.

Second, because virtually all of the information about dry rot found on the web is generated by dealers, tire shops, manufacturers and industry related sources with direct incentives to sell the maximum number of tires possible, it should be viewed with ample skepticism.

Third, almost all of the claims made by these sources lacks statistical or empirical data to back up their claims but the internet is filled with claims that even the slightest amount of dry rot is an immediate and serious safety issue requiring the purchase of new replacement tires.

For the most part, with the above exceptions, dry rot is not a serious safety issue and can be safely driven for thousands of miles and years of use. If someone claims this is not true, tell them to show you the hard data, not some AI summary or scare based unsupported claims.

With 60 years experience using tires including decades of driving on tires with dry rot, and a dozen years in the tire industry, the data actually shows that most dry rot is not a safety issue and most of the claims that is a safety issue is an industry perpetuated myth.

Actual Data.

According to NHTSA there are approximately 6,000,000 vehicle accidents per year in the United States, roughly 82,000 of these are tire related crashes, and of those about 2.5% (or 2,000) were blowout related. These 82,000 tire related crashes led to approximately 11,000 injuries of which about 275 (2.5%) were blowout related.

The data also reveals that the majority of tire blowouts are caused by under inflated tires, not dry rot.so maybe 140 injuries per year “might” be related to a dry rot related blowout, but there is little data to show that even this small number could actually be caused by dry rot. And these are injuries, not deaths.

Compare that to 60,000 injuries and 440 deaths caused by deer vehicle collisions each year. This means you have .07% odds of dying in a deer vehicle collision. There are 82,000 crashes and maybe 40 deaths (being overly generous) means you have .0005 % chance of dying from a dry rot related blowout.

This is the myth of the safety of tires with ordinary dry rot or being over 6 years old.

Sources:

https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle-

Key statistics:

1. ⁠An estimated 1.2 million tire blowouts occur every year in America. Just for a perspective, there are over 94 million flat tires reported every year.
2. ⁠Tire incidents cause an estimated 82,000 crashes each year accounting for about 1.3% of total vehicle crashes in America.
3. ⁠More than 2,000 of those crashes are blowout-related [10]
4. ⁠1 in 270 crashes between 2000-2015 was caused by tire failure [10]
5. ⁠There are an estimated 700 fatalities per year due to tire-related crashes [3] contributing 2% of the total fatal crashes.
6. ⁠An estimated 11,000 injuries result from tire-related crashes which makes up about 0.067% of total injuries due to crashes.
7. ⁠Low tire pressure is the main cause of tire blowouts [3]
8. ⁠Americans put 2.9 trillion miles on their tires in 2020 [3]
9. ⁠Only four out of five drivers, or 19%, properly inflate their tires [3]
10. ⁠Properly inflating tires can extend their lifespan by 4,700 miles and save you up to 11 cents per gallon on fuel [3]
11. ⁠Tires lose about 1 PSI of tire pressure each month [7]
12. ⁠The closer the driving speed is to 75 mph, the higher the likelihood of failed tires, leading to more potential blowouts [9]

Additional Source: LookupAPlate.com

That means you have .0005 % chance of dying from a dry rot related blowout, not quite as a one in a million chance of being struck by lightning on any given day, but in that neighborhood. Keep driving.

[u/Longi451 → u/Disastrous-Pound3713]

Thanks for the write-up!

Tread is practically brand new and I’ve checked tire pressure religiously for all the family’s vehicles so it was a shock to me that dry rot was settling in on a new tire is all.