Date Code

Brittany Dogs · 05-02-2017, 09:28 AM

I ordered two Marathons from a large tire shop in my area (a chain that has a dozen locations) in Western NY, and said I have right of refusal if the date code was not from 2017.

The tires came in today and the date code was March 2016. They basically said take them or leave them. I want to start over again perhaps with another shop but likely that chain would attempt to get the same tires from a master distributor.

I'm looking for your opinion if this is typical that I have to settle for 13 month old tires or should I keep looking?

**ShrimpBurrito** · 05-02-2017, 10:43 AM

It wouldn't be unreasonable to keep looking, as 14 months old is not negligible, but I wouldn't expect to get any that were less than 6 months old. So, is the 8-month savings worth it? If you change your tires out every 5 years (from date of manufacturer), it's not chump change, but it's not alot of money, either.

You might check tirerack or Amazon, as they are both high volume dealers drawing from a different inventory pool than your local dealer.

Dave

Brittany Dogs · 05-02-2017, 11:23 AM

Thank you Dave. That was the sanity check I was looking for. Another local chain said they would only get the tires from the same master distributor as the first place that gave me the March 2016 date code. Then I called Mavis which would obtain them from their main distribution point and the best code they had was Sept 2016, so I ordered those and figured that was about the best I could get. Mail order would be a hassle if they promised a date code that I didn't end up receiving and thus, would have to send them back. So that's why I wanted to work with a local store.

I got six seasons on the current set and there is still quite a bit of tread left but six seasons is as far as I wanted to trust my luck.

scrubjaysnest · 05-06-2017, 07:48 AM

I agree any good tire shop should get you tires no more then a month old. When we had the TM never had a problem, if the date code was to old we refused them. Also told them up front we would before they were ordered.
The other thing you need to watch is the speed rating. Some are good only to 62mph while others are much higher.