I purchased a 3500 just under a year ago. The tires looked in good shape and all looked too be a matching brand and tire style. The inside rears looked a bit different in the tread pattern was different than the other 4 but looked to be in good shape. About 3 months ago I had a front left side wall go out on me so I pulled the spare and threw it on and noticed it had the same thread pattern as the inner rears. I decided to go fishing one night a couple weeks ago. I was doing 65 headed west looking forward to a nice evening when the front left gave way and I just destroyed the front left tire again. I limped it off the hwy and removed one of the inner rear tires and put it on the front left. This week got stupid busy so I decided to try fishing Saturday night of this last week, Yep I never made it! another left front blow out again on the freeway with the same results. Same drill as the week before removing the rear inner and placing it on the front right. So I now have 4 tires on the ground and I need to purchase 3 more to replace what has been destroyed. Im thinking the tires were probably recaps? Old? do they even make recaps anymore?

Ive looked the wheel over and everything looks like its in good alignment. There is no scrubbing on the tire, Ive felt the hub after driving and its not hot or any hotter than the other wheels. Im baffled... Any Ideas before I go buy new tires?

 

There is a small set of numbers on the side wall, they will be if the tire was just made something like 2013, the 20 stands for the 20th week and the year 2013, check for these number as yours may have been made many years ago, I check the made date on new tires before they are put on my truck, as some tires sit in the wharehouse for years, friend of mine that owned a tire shop told me about this, he told me 5 years was about max. just my .2c worth, good luck

 

Im sure these skins are much older than 5 years... Probably the problem! Thanks

 

Found this to be of some help as I now know that the tires are older than old!



1) Find the Department of Transportation code on the tire. The DOT code starts with the letters "DOT" and is followed by 10, 11 or 12 letters or numbers.

2) Record the last four numbers of the DOT code.

3) Read the last two digits of the DOT code. The last two digits are the year of manufacture. If the last two digits are 07, for example, the tire was manufactured in 2007. The two digits before the year indicate the week of the year that the tires were manufactured. There are 52 weeks in a year, so these two digits range from 01 to 52.

4) Remove the tire or get under the car if the DOT code on the outer side wall of the tire is less than 10 characters long. The full DOT code is required to be only on one sidewall of each tire.

Tires made before January 1, 2000, had a three-digit date code. The final character was the last number of the year, while the two characters before that indicated the week of the year. There was no indication of the decade, so there is no way to tell whether a tire was made in 1997 or 1977.