p_carfan

I'm curious ...I love my S02's , "Tire Rack" has some left. Does anyone have an idea or personal experience with what the unmounted shelf life might be? Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Cheers <img border="0" alt="[cheers]" title="" src="graemlins/beerchug.gif" />

Jim Michaels

I remember a Yoko tire rep at a tire clinic years ago saying that the shelf life is several years, so I think you can safely buy those to hold on to until you need new tires.

Jeff 993TT

keep them out of the sunlight though...

Viken

Porsche says not to use a tire that's older than 6 years. This because any given tire will dry and crack no matter how it is stored. If you really want to do this, make sure your storage facility is not located in an overly dry environment.

Luis A.

My '96 still has the original Pirellis. The rears likely have about 4-5k miles left in them. Should I replace the fronts as well when the rears wear out, even if they look good? Can a visual inspection tell much?

mike cap

Steve,

Are you saying in your post that the S02's are being discontinued?

I have S02's on my 1997. New last year with about 7,000 miles on FR and RR.

The rears look like they're at about 1/2 life, the fronts look like new. I expected to put a set on the rear when they wear and still run my original fronts. Two to one ratio....

If the S02's are being discontinued, I will by a set of rears now. Would appreciate it if you or any of the guys would let me know.

Thanks,

Mike Cap
1997 C2
Arena Red

drcollie

Keep 'em out of the ozone environments (sunlight and away from the furnace) and they'll last a long time in storage. However, the S03's seem to be everything the S02 is/was, but they perform better at the halfway-worn mark, so perhaps you really want to research this before you store S02's.

Jim Michaels

Luis: Your fronts will be over 7 years old when you replace the rears. The fronts will have harder and less flexible and grippy rubber than the rears, and that should contribute to additional push. I'm in the same boat, except my tires (S02s) are only 5 years old. The rears have several thousand more miles in them, but the fronts look hardly worn. Nonetheless, I plan to replace both this year in order to retain about the same grip proportion front to rear that I now have.

I've heard and read about the 6-year effective life span that Viken mentioned. I don't know how this applies to properly stored unmounted new tires, however. I've heard to store them in a cool dry place away from electric motors and off the concrete. Stored tires don't go through heat cycles and the extremes of heat and cold that tires that are driven on do, so I suspect that their flexibility and softness would be retained a little longer.

p_carfan

Mike-

Yep...I've heard that from a couple of sources. I've even seen some post on this board, regarding that. Now I haven't seen that in writing in the media or from "Bridgestone" . My fronts look pretty good my rears are about halfway done. 1 to 2 - front to back is what I usually get.

Perhaps some others can shed some light on the future of the SO2's ?

Cheers <img border="0" alt="[cheers]" title="" src="graemlins/beerchug.gif" />

911

I've heard wrapping them in plastic helps preserve tire life. Any truth to this?

Viken

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by p_carfan:
<strong>Perhaps some others can shed some light on the future of the SO2's ?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">What do you mean by future? They are discontinued and that's the end of the S-02. The S-02A is a much better tire if you want to stay with Bridgestone.

p_carfan

What I meant by "future..." Is, I didn't know for sure and unlike some, hearsay (my resorce) is not fact. You have obviously spoken <img border="0" alt="[nono]" title="" src="graemlins/nono.gif" /> , so that's fact. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

Again, my reasoning was my tires usually wear 2 sets of rears to 1 set of fronts. I wanted (and did) to buy an extra set, of rears.