Tires look dried out

raymond82
raymond82 Posts: 330
edited May 2013 in Workshop
After having two flats during two consecutive rides I took a close look at my tires and apart from the usual small cuts I noticed that the rubber looked completely dried out, the whole tire was covered in small cracks. Is this normal?

They are Continental GP4000s tires, they've been on the bike for around 2 years now, probably around 6500 km.

Comments

  • Wirral_paul
    Wirral_paul Posts: 2,476
    At 6500km i'd say they are likely to be pretty worn out anyway. If you have any doubts, and are getting lots of flats then personally i'd look at changing them. No doubt some will say they will be fine - but they will probably run them down to the carcass with no rubber left on them at all. I replace them sooner and am happier knowing that my tyres arent excessively worn.
  • pilot_pete
    pilot_pete Posts: 2,120
    I do as Wirral Paul and also ride Conti GP4000s. They do have a tendency to look 'dried out' as you put it - lots of little splits on the tread and sidewalls? I have heard it is caused by exposure to the sun's UV rays, so if you bought them 2 years ago, kept them until early last year, then fitted them, you should be able to count that out! :wink:

    Seriously though, I think they just age that way with use and exposure to uv light may well exacerbate that. My rear wears 'square' well before that happens though...

    PP
  • raymond82
    raymond82 Posts: 330
    hahaha, for sure it won't be caused by the sun's UV rays the last half a year indeed! I could do with some UV light to be honest..

    I had two flats in the rear tire last weekend so I'm sure they need to be replaced. The two wear indicators were still visible but overall the tire looked quite screwed. There are two different things I see, the usual small cuts caused and the small splits you describe. They look different than the normal wear cause by riding over sharp objects but if they're caused by UV light I guess there's not much I can do about it...

    It's mainly the rear tire but I'll replace them both,I ordered 25 mm tires since that appears to be the new best thing!
  • smoggysteve
    smoggysteve Posts: 2,909
    6500km - They certainly do not owe you anything. Seems a decent mileage to get out of a set of tyres. Replace and hope the next set last as long as they did.
  • raymond82
    raymond82 Posts: 330
    6500km - They certainly do not owe you anything. Seems a decent mileage to get out of a set of tyres. Replace and hope the next set last as long as they did.

    I will! To be honest I didn't really know how long tires usually last but if you say 6500 km is good than I believe you. I'm quite happy with the GP4000s, I had a total of three flats in these 6500 kms, two of which happened last weekend.
  • keef66
    keef66 Posts: 13,123
    My Conti 4 Seasons started to look like that after 4 years, and pretty soon after that the remaining tread started to disintegrate showing patches of carcass. When I fitted the new ones I realised how badly the old ones had deteriorated without me realising.
  • raymond82
    raymond82 Posts: 330
    My Conti 4 Seasons started to look like that after 4 years,

    That's a lot longer than two years but of course it depends on how many kms you used them. For sure I'll be looking at my tires a bit more often from now on, I only checked properly because of the two flats in a row but otherwise I wouldn't have noticed at all I think.
  • keef66
    keef66 Posts: 13,123
    raymond82 wrote:
    My Conti 4 Seasons started to look like that after 4 years,

    That's a lot longer than two years but of course it depends on how many kms you used them. For sure I'll be looking at my tires a bit more often from now on, I only checked properly because of the two flats in a row but otherwise I wouldn't have noticed at all I think.

    It's possible they'd started to deteriorate sooner but I didn't notice (the rear was worse and last year the mudguards never came off so it wasn't glaringly obvious till the thing started losing patches of tread)

    Got over 4000 miles out of the rear and nearly 5000 from the front...
  • raymond82
    raymond82 Posts: 330
    I replaced the tires today and they looked even worse than I thought. It's good to know the amount of km/miles they usually last so I can keep an eye on them by the time I get there.

    I took a picture of the small splits:
    fd172ae0-4bb8-493b-a2c2-d4d4e5fcdce5_zps7b3ba279.jpg

    This can be seen throughout the whole tire but only when I squeeze it like in the picture. If it's from UV there's not much I can do, I just wanted to be sure it wasn't cause by me not maintaining them well enough.
  • keef66
    keef66 Posts: 13,123
    The cracks in mine were a lot bigger than that! I'd have kept on riding on yours. Keep them as spares.
  • raymond82
    raymond82 Posts: 330
    These cracks were only the part of the damage, there were lots of the usual bigger cracks too. Apart from that the side walls also were completely damaged so I think it's good that I replaced them. I took my first ride on the 25 mms today and liked it a lot, they felt more comfortable.

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