TECH TIPS: TIRES IN WINTER HIBERNATION ‘HOW TO GIVE THEM A FIGHTING CHANCE’

Most of us in less friendly climates hate the day when the old car gets put away for the winter. It’s lot like when you were a kid in school and the next day was the dreaded “back to school” party for your parents.

Putting a collector car in storage is a necessary evil-you can’t expose the old war pony to the same horrible conditions that cost it that fresh factory look. You have to minimize the damage

Same thing with tires.

Many old car guys have some pretty expensive rubber on their rides- ranging from reproduction wide whites or redlines to state of the art performance tires for high performance resto-mods.

Winter storage means a lot of down time for that costly rubber. This means you have to protect that facet of your automotive investment. We consulted with tire professionals for some helpful hints about storing your expensive rubber.

The first comment was that “it’s really important where you store your tires”. Ideally you have them stored in a cold, dry place. Pros highly recommend that you take the tires off the car, bring them inside and don’t even think about exposing them to sunlight.

That’s in an ideal world. Many of us have to store the cars with the tires still on the vehicle so they recommend jack stands to take the pressure off the tires over that long, brutal, non-old car driving season.

Failing that (we’re almost at worst case scenario here) they insist that if you store your beloved car on the ground "at least park it on a clean, grease-free surface". Anything like grease, gasoline or solvents can really shorten the life of those expensive tires.

The next to worst case scenario is indoor storage with fluctuations in temperature from heat sources like electric motors, generators and hot pipes. That starts the lovely process known as condensation and it’s like a mini rain shower inside your tire. This moisture builds up rust in the beads and corrosion in valve cores.

The worst case scenario is storing them outside in the mud-we’ve added some pictures as examples but the big question is, “why are you that stupid? Sell the car to somebody that cares”. Everything that you can do to wreck a tire is found in that kind of storage. Pros sure don’t recommend it.  

Finally we asked  if nitrogen is a good investment for storing your tires. They didn’t think so because even if the molecules are larger, there is no guarantee that the tires won’t leak over the winter. That doesn’t make nitrogen a solid bet and it’s pretty expensive. Most old car guys are willing to invest in things that definitely work but nitrogen is, at best, a roll of the dice.

Like everything else on a car, tires are an item that really gives you more if you follow sensible maintenance schedules. Especially when you leave them alone for 6 months.