Does anyone know how to determine when a tire was manufactured?

I know there is a way and since I need to replace mine I don't want to buy a piece of rubber that has been sitting in a warehouse for 4 years. Since my baby will never see enough miles to wear a set out I want a set that will remain safe as long as possible.

A good friend of mine had a blowout at 65mph on his '56 chevy with a set of tires that had only 15,000 miles on them. However, they were 10 years old and the cause of the blowout was determined to be old age (by a lab tech that works for one of the big manufacturers) even though the tires showed no cracking whatsoever. He said that it was one of the scariest experiences he has ever had and it cost him over $3,000 in bodywork to fix the rear quarter panel since the entire side had to be painted to match.

There is a serial number molded into every passenger car tire that identifies the manufacturer, plant and lot number, but not specifically the date. There can be any number of identical tires with the same number as the number is for recall purposes. The date may well be coded within the serial number, but that would have to be researched through the manufacturer.

The last 4 digits of the DOT number is the date code,, for example,,, a "PLBR HLTB 4102 " code would be a tire that was produced the 41st week of 2002. The first pair of digits "PL" is the production plant, the 3rd & 4th & second set of 4 "BR HLTB" designates the size & model tire. If you see a tire with only 3 digits in the year grouping, it was produced before 1990.

|UPDATED|3/1/2004 7:28:26 PM (AZT)|/UPDATED|