Explanation of Danger Posed by Aging Tires

Even without any defect limiting service life, like all rubber products, tires degrade over time. The tire's internal structure degrades, reducing adhesion between the belts, which in turn facilitates tread separation. This internal degradation occurs regardless of tread use and wear.

Tire manufacturers have long known that tires more than six years old, regardless of tread depth, pose a substantial safety hazard to consumers. Tire age degradation has been an "open secret" within the industry, but the public has only recently started to take notice as the number of crashes caused by "aged" tires has grown.

In 2002, the U.S. Department of Transportation National Highway Safety Administration ("NHTSA") proposed a tire-aging test that tire manufacturers would be required to perform on their products. The proposal recognized auto-safety advocates' long-held concern that government test requirements ensured only short-term durability and did not protect against catastrophic tire failures from long-term chemical degradation.

Overwhelming industry opposition and the industry's lack of consensus on an aging standard led NHTSA to shelve the proposed rule-making until it completed research on potential test protocols.

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