Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeD
The second thing I noticed was that there was no Date Code in the DOT information block. The tire has a DOT area, but the third block is blank. Do Euro-metric tires have a different encoding for the manufacturing date ?
Thanks -- Mike
|
There is a federal mandate right now that got put on hold, requiring tire manufacturers to put the DOT/date code on both sidewalls (it had always just been required on one sidewall). This was to keep consumers from having to crawl under their vehicles in order to read the DOT code, if that was the side of the tire had the DOT code molded on it.
The only thing that changes each week in tire manufacturing is the week/year code. These date plates have to be changed every week in the tire molds. The manufacturers are arguing that to change the inside sidewall mold date plate is dangerous to the person doing it, and they might get burned (which is true), reaching in. They then say they will lose a lot of production time, waiting for the molds to cool down, to change the inside date plates. Because of this, the government has temporarily halted this requirement.
The manufacturers aren't sure if they are going to win this argument, so they are putting the DOT codes on both sides, all the code except for the inside date plate currently. If you don't see the date in the DOT code on the sidewall of your tire, then most likely it was the inside sidewall in the tire mold............look on the other sidewall, and I bet you will have the whole enchilada.
Of course, that'll require you crawling under the trailer. If you do, take a flashlight.
