I note the British warning has to do with putting tires into service after six years, not warning against using tires more than six years old.

Let's suppose that a tire is sold just one month after its manufacture.    And suppose that the average vehicle is driven 12,000 miles year, and suppose that actual tire wear life is estimated at 60,000 miles, that new, freshly manufactured tire should get something like five years of safe use.

So if the "new" tire is sold six years after manufacture it's within that permissible sales time frame, but contemplating using it for five years, it will be eleven years old before it reaches 60,000 miles, and it would be reasonable to expect it to be safe during that life. The British warning is not, as I get it, that the consumer should remove say a seven or eight year old from manufacture tire from his vehicle, but that a tire should not be sold with a running start toward an accident.

Dave Oesterreich