The alloys on my TR7 are 34yrs old and the tyres were well over 20yrs when I eventually changed them.

They can become 'porous' if poor original quality, and can deteriorate round the beading. Put a squirt of washing up liquid in a small glass of water and paint it round the rim to see if it leaks.

If there is nothing but a bit of superficial cracking on the tyre it should be fine. Sunlight can do this over time, so if been in the boot it should be OK.

I have been offered a new condition 16in alloy wheel and tyre. My concern is that it has been the spare kept in the boot for about 15 years. I am neurotic but could there have been any deterioration caused by age. Any risk and I'm not interested ( even though its free ! )

Thanks for advice

The wheel may be OK but the tyre probably won't be any good except kept as an emergency only. As Skidpan says, rubber hardens and deteriorates with age, so even if no cracking is visible on the sidewalls, the tyre will give a hard ride and could be 'non round' or even dangerous.

Edited by 72 dudes on 13/06/2014 at 18:32

A spare alloy is always worth having in case you ever kerb one of yours, especially if it's coming to you for free.

I'd change the tyre though. Any structural deterioration will not be visible and IMO not worth the risk, however low the percieved risk might be - a blow out on the motorway is not a pleasant experience!!

Put nitrogen in them if porous, and they leak. But don't worry, in my country very many people buy second hand tyres from germany (there are places that sell them usually any tyre for 50-100 lei). They are less dangerous than they sound, lots of people say they are ok. But then again I saw a lot more tyre services in Romania by the side of the road (one in every village) and the average speed in romania is a lot lower than in the uk (we only have 632,8 km of motorway, and the rest are quite annoying roads.