How old are your tires?

Yes, your old motorcycle tires may still look fine as you admire your clean cool-looking wheels.  You probably think those tires are still safe since they’re not that old, right?  But wait, how old are they?  Do you really know?  Is there a way to get more motorcycle info about the age of tires? Since learning that motorcycle tires have date codes, I now check that to be sure.  Time flies and tires age and become less safe.

Here’s how you can check the age of your motorcycle tires.  Look for an 11 or 12 character serial number on your tire’s sidewall.  No, you don’t have to de-code that entire long number, just look at the last four digits (for tires made since the year 2000).  Those last four digits tell you the week number and year that the tire was made.

For example, if the number ends with 2103, the tire was made during the 21st week of the year 2003.  This code works for tires that were made since the year 2000.

Before the year 2000, only the last 3 digits told you about the date.  For example, if the last 3 digits were 508, then that means that the tire was made during the 50th week of year 8 of that decade.  Was it 1998, 1988?  There may be ways to determine which decade, but why waste time on that?  Go get some new and safer motorcycle tires on your bike soon!