Tire Replacement - Milage v/s Age

[coopr]

At the risk of sounding a little stupid, I need to ask this question. I read a post on the BMW owners web site yesterday posted by a guy who had 5 year old tires on his cycle and had the front tire slide out from under him. He said it happened because the tires were "old" and "hard" and warned others to replace their tires if they had a similar situation. I just purchased a '02 1150RT with 1300 miles it . The tires seem okay, obviously little or no wear. In fact, they still have the little "nubbies" (what do you call those things)on 'em. My question is, is there a general rule of thumb of wear v/s age for replacing tires? Thanks!

 

By the way - this is my fist BMW - wish I'd have done it long ago. I'm having a blast.

[snod]

My personal rule has been 5 years. Any tire over five years old is not fit for ME to ride at highway speeds. They DO get hard and brittle with age. On four wheels I will stretch that quite a bit, but not on two! I have direct knowledge of two seperate incidents directly related to over age tires. Only one involved serious injury.

[Mr. Frank]

The only "rule" I've heard is old tires are a bad thing. I would think 5 years is plenty old. I would guess that 3-5 years would be the range, but I have no data. There are lots of good tires out there that were not available five years ago. Not only will to get a new tire, you can get better tires.

[Agent_Orange]

New tires = no worries. I would spring for new tires.

[Fugu]

I wish I had enough bikes that this sort of thing was a concern.