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Aging Tires That Look New
Brain Ross with a troubling investigation about the American tire industry.
Summer time means millions more people on the road which makes it urgent that you see what Bryant Ross has discovered about tires. Are those new tires really new? Experts say finding out could protect you from deadly consequences.
The call came to the Moore house in Newtown, Pennsylvania just days after 18-year-old Andy Moore had left in the family van for a graduation trip to Canada.
"My ex-wife called me, Andy’s brother called me. And I'll never forget she said a policeman just came to the house, they told me Andy had a car accident, and then her voice started to crack, she said that and they told me that he died."
Police outside Toronto said the accident that killed Andy Moore and Andy’s best friend wasn’t caused by speed or alcohol, but by a tire failure. The tire didn’t just blow out. The tread actually peeled off the tire, leading Robert Moore to a troubling discovery about the American tire industry.
"I got my vehicle maintenance records together, and that's when I discovered that the, tires that I thought were new were actually 4 years old when I bought them.”
It turns out that tires sold in this country can be sitting on the shelves for years. And only later would Robert Moore learned about the researching tests which show that as tires get older, even if they look new, they begin to dry out, and after 6 years of age can become very dangerous. At the time of the accident, the tires on the Moore family van were actually 9 years old.
I was led to believe I had safe tires on the car, and so I sent these boys off to Canada, thinking they had a safe vehicle and they didn’t.
And decedent test done for lawsuits, when a car is traveling at highway speed and a tire tread comes off, the car violently swerves and weaves. Even a skilled driver, who knew he was about to lose the tire, could not keep control.
"I think I'm okay, I think I'm okay!"
"There is no scientific information that can point to when a tire should be removed because of age."
"It’s a hidden danger. You can look at a tire where the tire looks greatly fine, you don’t know what’s going on inside it, that's what makes it so dangerous,"
Shawn Cane who runs a private auto-safety research firm has been in the forefront of trying to draw attention to the issue of aged tires.
"Essentially it'sdrying out, yeah, it's becoming less elastic.”
Even when the tire has never been driven a mile and looks like it has plenty of tread depth, the usual test of a tire safety:
"You have plenty of tread depth on this tire, right, plenty of tread depth, it's brand-new,"
"Yet it's very dangerous in your view."
"Absolutely.”
