Do any of you you really understand tires? [View all]

I'm facing new tires. This is hand-wringing. But my mechanic pointed out bald rear inners, cracks. I'm surprised he passed them, I guess it's the low annual mileage. So I took a look. Cracks on the edge, all around where tread meets sidewall.

Now understand these tires are 23 and 22 years old. So I got to digging in codes on the tires. A 4 digit is week and year of manufacture. So my 1201 is 12th week, 2001. Amazing.

But there is another part to that code: LBW 1201 What's the LBW? Not much online about that. I'm thinking refers to a plant.

Then there is another code: DO1L No mention of that either.

These are Cooper Tires, so made in the US at that time most likely. So DO is not a Kumho location.

I'm just wondering.

Also, are all radial tires now steel belted? They've kind of dropped the mention of steel.

Do any of you recall when they started making hockey pucks out of old tires, and the steel began breaking plexiglass? Took them a while to figure it out.