I personally wouldn't pay full price for tires that were over a year old. Especially these days when buying tires online, how old would they have to be to have you refuse them and send them back?

 

They say tires should be replaced every 6 years, so I would agree with you on a year limit for buying new tires.

 

I don't personally subscribe to the idea that tires have a fixed expiration date, it's highly variable based on usage (including operational climate), storage, and care conditions. The common "6 year" recommendation probably assumes a worst case scenario within the realm of reasonable usage and keeps things simple for the average motorist, but it might be even shorter in applications that really push the limit (such as competition) and far, far longer for applications that see nothing but pampered conditions. Ultimately, folks should obviously do whatever makes them feel most comfortable, but personal experience has proven to me that, for some applications, the range is quite greater than the recommendation would suggest.

Having said that, I would expect most tires to be reasonably fresh when purchased new, especially if it's from a big online retailer. However, some oddball sizes or tires purchased from lower volume local warehouses might be older than 12 months, and that could be typical. Tires age very slowly when stored in proper conditions, but, of course, you can only hope that the warehouse has been storing them in proper conditions.

 

Depends on the tire you are buying. I’ve been selling tires for almost 8 years now and we keep about 4000 in my store alone. Rare for any of my normally stocked items to sit on my rack for more than 2 months and rarely over 6 months old (based on manufacture date) before I sell it. Filling out all these damn CIMS cards for tire registration is annoying, but it definitely gives you a good idea of how old your product is.

I had had a customer a few months ago bring in his 90’s Porsche SUV with a weird *** tire size. He came in and already knew what tire he wanted. It was a Michelin, and none of my local vendors had it in stock so I just ordered it straight from Michelin. Tires come in, we put them on, I hand him his CIMS card and the DOT age was ~4817. So these tires were manufactured in about November of 2017. This sale was in about Feb/March 2019 so the tires are just a year and a few months old. He was livid and asking why the tires are so old. I explained to him that it’s a very odd size and that manufacturers don’t continually produce these odd size tires. They will generally run a batch for a predetermined amount of time, say 3-6 months of production for example, to have enough inventory to fit the timeline that they think they can sell it in and to fit around the manufacturing schedule. Manufacturers DO NOT run every mold 24/7. Its impossible and would just be stupid due to actual sales volume of certain sizes/models. Manufacturers also have a strict “first in/first out” for product in their warehouses to avoid situations of several year old tires shipping out.

Long story short I offered to order him a different set of tires and not charge him for the first set we ordered, since the age bothered him so much. But all he wanted was some deep discount because he wouldn’t accept any other tire on the market. I humored him and asked what he thought was fair and he said 20%. Not even close to that kind of mark up on a Michelin, so I told him that’s not going to happen. I called Michelin for him so they could explain the same thing I just told him and asked if they would be willing to do anything for my upset customer. Of course they said no because his request was ridiculous and obviously his grief wasn’t genuine since he wouldn’t take my offer for any other tire his heart desired.

My company won’t sell a tire that is over 3 years old. If we find it in inventory we cut the sidewall and throw it away. If you are worried about the potential age of a tire you are ordering, then you have to be realistic about what you are ordering.

 

At least on race tires, 1.5 years tops before mounting, once heat cycled,
they are trash at the end of the season at the most, The harden up a lot when sitting...

Wrapping them in a airtight wrap makes a big difference.