Motorbike tires are a very important part of a bike. So, everyone should know well about motorbike tires. Now our topic is about the production date of tires. Everyone should know when and where the tires were produced. And the way to know it is also very simple. Just as all products have a serial number or production date on their body, so do bike tires have an identification number. This identification number is a symbol of when, in what week or year the tire was produced. So, today we will see how we can know the production date or year of any tire by using or seeing this identification number. So let's have a discussion on this topic today.
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration introduced identification numbers for these tires. As a rule, this identification number will be DOT and 11-12 letters or numbers which will indicate the place of manufacture of the tire, date, year, week, size of the tire etc. It is again expressed in different ways from different years. We know that.
Tires produced after 2000:
The last four codes of identification numbers indicate the week and year of manufacture of tires that have been produced since 2000. Production week is calculated by 2 digits of last 4 digits and production year is calculated by other 2 digits. The last two digits of the year determine the year and the previous two digits indicate the week in which the tire was produced.
The example below is the identification code or number of tires produced after 2000.
The code in the example above is: DOT U2LL LMLR 5107. 51: The tire is made in the 51st week of the year. 07: The tire was made in 2006
Whereas before, only the full identification number of the tire was written on one side of the bike tire, now only the first part of the DOT and identification number is written on the other side of the tire. That's why if you look at any one side first, you may see the incomplete identification number, so then check the identification number on the other side of the tire.
Another Side
As you can see in the picture above, the incomplete identification number on one side of the tire reduces the risk of injury to the technician when creating the code of the week or year.
Tires produced before 2000:
In the case of tires manufactured before 2000, the rule was that the tires could not be used for more than 10 years. So the identification number of those tires has been generated in that way. However, those tires also provide the same information as the current tires. However, its production year or week is denoted by the last three digits of the identification code. In the case of this tire, the last one digit of the identification code indicates the year in which the tire was produced, and the previous two digits indicate the week in which the tire was produced.
The photo below is an example of a tire identification number produced before 2000:
The code in the example above is: DOT EJ8J DFM 408. 40: The tire is made in the 40th week of the year. 8: The tire was made in the eighth year of a decade.
In this case, in the case of pre-2000 motorbike tires, it is possible to understand in which decade the tire was produced, but, it is not possible to understand in which decade it was produced or in which year it was produced.
Now, finally let’s come to the matter of buying your tires. Most tire manufacturing companies offer a 4 year warranty on the purchase of tires or a 5 year warranty on their production week. Now, if you bought a tire that was made 2 years ago, you will get a 7 year warranty from Total Company if you can keep the purchase receipt just like that. And if you lose the receipt then according to the rules of the company you will get a total of 3 years warranty, because the company gives them a warranty of 5 years from the week of production.
So, before buying tires, buy tires that are recently made. Even if you lose your receipt, you can enjoy a much longer warranty.