When to replace All Terrain tires?

Hi,
I don't have a lot of experience w/ off road rigs, and am having a hard time deciding if I should replace my tires before a big trip. If not, I at least need them rotated and an alignment.. So either way the truck's going in the shop. They're KO2's. They have front, 10/32 remaining. Rear, 6/32. (I know the previous owner had them rotated at times, but obviously they're worn unevenly). They've got over 55k miles and 6 years on them. This is on a truck camper, so highly modified tacoma w/ a heavy bull bar and winch in front, and heavy camper on back.
Two tire installation companies in town have told me they're fine and they would not replace them. From what I could tell, they made this decision based only on what is legally required. But they both basically said they'd be stealing from me if they replaced them now and wouldn't do it. I've seen a couple forum posts say they always replace theirs after 5 years or after 50k miles or some random tread depth they have personally chosen. But then the next post is some guy who has 150k on them and no plans to replace them soon.
I'm about to drive across the country and go camp in the desert, and want to be safe, comfortable, and have traction when I'm off road in the desert.

SO, after that long setup.. Would you get new tires or maybe just rotate them for now?

 

Currently the manufacturer’s are recommending 6 year replacement cycles. I think that’s a bit short, but, lawyers. I suppose some body had a blow out on a 8 year old tire. I just replaced 5 three year old tires. Lots of tred left but I dragged them over rocks once too often and all the sidewalls were cut. Not to the cord but enough to use it as an excuse to buy new rims and tires.

Do you have a reliable spare tire? If nobody is trying to sell you tires be happy.

 

That's a good question, heh.. (urg, why can't anything be easy).
I have a full size spare. Never used. But, I had a slow fuel leak above the tire and when I found it, the tire had been soaked in fuel for who knows how long, and the rubber was all swollen and soft there. It was on the tread, not the sidewall. I fixed the fuel leak about 6 months ago. The contaminated rubber has retracted and is just a little softer than the rest of the tire now. Everyone tells me it's 'probably fine'.. Which is a great answer when it comes to something like a tire exploding at 70mph on the highway, heh..

My other factor for the decision.. I will need tires at some point. And I will likely not put another 55k miles on this truck. So if I won't ever wear them out, maybe I should get them now to enjoy them. But otoh, if it really won't make much of a difference at all at this point, I won't bother. Like you said, if the tire companies aren't willing to sell me tires, maybe they're right and I should be happy w/ my tires. But again.. Otoh.. One of the guys definitely looked up specs on factory tires and it took him a while to even realize what he was looking at.. I mean.. My truck and tires don't look anything like factory.. But a good 5 minutes after walking around the truck and looking at things on the computer, he says... "Oh.. I think someone put different tires on your truck".

 

Check the manufacture date on the tires and if you’re less than 7yrs then I’d say you’re good to go. The rubber starts to break down after that. You could always rip them up this trip and get new ones when you get back home. Definitely don’t run anything past 10yrs old.

The other option is swap them now for the piece of mind. Hard to put a price on that.

 

Your tires should be fine for driving and safe in a sense that you dont have to worry about them exploiding. The reason they may not be safe is do to the loss in traction of the aged tread compound. Tread compounds start to loose traction over time and a 6 year old tire will have much worse traction that a new tire. As long as you go slow during wet or snowy conditions you should be fine.

 

I've got to admit.... I found the date code on these, and they are not as old as I thought... The previous owner of this truck has records of everything.. Every little maintenance check, tire rotation, etc.. But, new tires were not in any of the paperwork so I assumed these were the original tires from when he built the rig. BUT, date code says Nov 2017. So, not that old. And, apparently not lasting even close to 50k miles. Looks like they got 2.5 years out of the first set. These will be due for replacement sometime this year.
But, I do feel safe for this trip now that I know they aren't old.