I know a guy that wants to sell me a pair of so called "new" tires, they look new and unworn, but inside the 3 groove rings there are tiny little cracks. I found this to be strange, does anybody have any idea what happening here?

Tires can look new and unused but actually be old so that may be one explanation. You can check the tire codes to see the year of manufacture and what week. See link below.

Click here (http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=11)

Thanks, will do.

There was a news report a few weeks back about this very subject. The report was on tires and or spares that have never been used, "old", and there were cracks that formed over time. This particular report related a tire that basically fell apart resulting in an accident and killing a young driver on a expressway because of old age and cracks. The tire had never been used but "looked" new. However, they were full of cracks on the sidewall. Something to keep in mind.

Yeah I remember various media outlets covered similar stories. ABC 20/20 & NBC, etc. Sent out investigative reporters to check tire age with the big retailers. There is some magic figure about tires up to 5 years old being acceptable. At 6 years they have a 15% failure rate due to age.

I went out and checked the serial number (last 4 digits) on all of mine just to be sure especially on the recent purchases since they were big bucks. I had nothing older than 2005 on all the cars.