Quote Originally Posted by 64GunPilot View Post

Tire question: All my tires that came with the car are RA1s. I noticed AFTER I took off my rain tires that they were a little dry rotted on the treads....looked at the date codes and they are 15 years OLD!!! YIKES, I ran these at 130mph down the straights in the rain! Looked at the rest of the spares.....yea 12-15 years old. Only two of these tires appeared dry rotted, the rest look ok. Whats the thought on this? Discard the dry rotted tires, and run the rest that look ok? Or replace them all?
Nope, nope, nope, nope. Just my 2 ¢. I'm just an amateur race car mechanic but I've got a 77 Vette and already this spring I've seen too
many pictures on the C3 forums of blown up Corvette fenders because "they looked brand new" tires disintegrated at 50 or 60 mph.
When date codes were checked the tires were 9 or 10 years old. Realized last year that the tires on mine were 9 years old. Time for
new shoes - I'd guess the ones on the car probably have easily less than 1000 miles (were on the car when I bought it) and I wouldn't
be shocked to find out they have less than 500 miles on them. I know the car was driven less than 100 miles the year before I
bought it (personal toy of the owner of the dealership) and the story was that he got it from an old guy who had done some
of the restorative work and got to the point where he didn't/couldn't drive it any longer.

The problem is not with the tread on these tires, well besides that they are probably as hard as granite. It's the delamination of the
belts in the tire carcass. Unless you get a bubble or notice an egg shaped tire, you'll get the message when it's scattered all over
the track, probably in the middle of a high speed corner or at the top end of the long straight. Brown moment anyone?

The stupid part on the C3 is that RWL factory style replacement tires are stupid expensive because they are now a "specialty" tire
and only manufactured in limited batches. You might end up getting a 2 year old date coded tire from the"new" tire place.
Yea, Thanks Guys.

Nothing good happens when a tire reverts to some-assembly-required at 130 mph.