The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk age of tires

When I got my 46 chevy pick up in had 42000 miles on it. I has been setting in a shed for years and needed a lot. One thing is the tires. Can some one tell me how old they are from the serial number. I know this was covered recently but I can't make out when these tires were new.
m55ca72
m55ca38
c40ul763
They still look good but I would be afraid to try to go far on them.

I'll look and confirm, but I believe the codes are:

Four numbers - WWYY - two digits for week of the year made, and last two for year (post 2000).

or

Three numbers - WWY - where Y is the last digit of the year. These are pre-2000. I don't know how to tell of a 529 is the last week of 1999 or 1989.

Just read in my notes that there is supposed to be a triangle after the three digit code to indicate decade of 1990... no triangle means decade of 1980. Hmm.

These three / four digit codes are usually in a little oval or some other formation, because these are changable casting codes and not part of the permanent casting. Hope that makes sense.

DOT codes are a 10 to 12 digit number located near the letters "DOT". BTW the digits can be numbers or letters.

The first 2 digits are a code for the manufacturing plant.

The next 2 digits are a code for the tire size.

The next 3 or 4 digits are a code for the type of tire.

The last 3 or 4 digits are the date code. The format is week/week/year/year or week/week/year

Starting in the year 2000, the date coding used is 4 digits. That means the highest number you should see for the year is 08. Before 1999 the format was 3 digits. 1999 and 2000 are transition years, so you will find both 3 and 4 digits.