Please read! Very important!

By Chuck Woodbury
Dear reader,
We have written many times on our various RV websites about the dangers of driving on old tires, even if they appear in excellent condition. Tires deteriorate over time, even when not used. The tires may appear to be in like-new condition, but inside the rubber is slowly deteriorating. This may dangerously weaken the tire and increase the risk of a blowout at high speed or during hot weather. We have urged our readers to replace their tires when they are five or six years old.The ABC News show 20/20 ran a special report last year on the dangers of old tires. The news show used undercover reporters to purchase "new" tires from various retailers and tire stores. Some of these so-called new tires were anywhere from four to 14 years old. The report said these old tires were "ticking time bombs." The average consumer assumes that when they buy new tires for their vehicle they are getting new tires, not old unsold tires that may have been stored for years in a warehouse. The date code is not obvious, and if you don't know how to read it, it's a meaningless number on the side of the tire.We received the following letter last week from RVtravel.com readers Bill and Irma Smith, who narrowly avoided buying nine-year old "new tires" at a Michigan Walmart."We were vacationing and visiting grand kids in Michigan. The trip up from Norfolk Virginia to Michigan was a tire mess -- our fault for not replacing dry rot tires. We blew three tires on the way up there. No way would we return without new tires. We went to the Walmart in Plainwell to buy new tires for the rest of the rig. The tires the salesman was going to sell us as new tires had been manufactured in 2000! The tires we were replacing were from 2001. "We had learned from an article in RV Travel about tire manufacturing dates. We got tires elsewhere and returned home safely. I contacted Walmart by e-mail and they said a man from the Plainwell store would call me. He argued that there was nothing wrong with selling nine-year-old tires as new. He claimed the tires were just as safe as those that were newly manufactured. "If we had not read RV Travel we would have bought those tires from Walmart. We just plain forgot about our own tires getting old and should have replaced them before we left."