Look for the letters DOT on the sidewall of your tire. This stands for Department of Transportation.
There will be a bunch of codes following it. Look for the last four digits of the code. For example a typical code could be; DOT 2VPR 3518. Don’t be confuse if this code is longer, manufacturing codes differ but the code still works the same. The code also includes manufacturer and plant code as well as tire size code. To tell tire age you only need the last 4 digits of the code.
The 35 would be the week number of the year (between 1 and 52) it was manufactured and the 18 the year (2018 in this case). In this example it was manufactured in the 35th week of 2018. a Tire can go bad without ever being driven on. It will go bad plainly due to age. After about 5 years the tire will start to experience oxidative degradation and will impact the integrity of the tire. If your tire is older than 10 years it should be replaced.
