Out of all my G1 tires, only Rodimus' stuck to an acrylic riser it was on. Rest are fine. Well, Shockwave's rubber tube is toast. But oh well.

My Car Robots/RID stuff, a lot are cracked but mainly bc I gave them to my sons when the were 2yrs old and all they wanted to do was remove them...over and over.

That said, I prefer rubber tires. I don't care about the real long term of this stuff.

 

Over 35 years + of owing and manhandling figures, I never had a single rubber tire have any kind of problem....

My only problem is I am missing a pair from Lightspeed (the Brainmaster).

 

Should I be worried about my 07 Landmine?

 

I thought the same thing when I was younger... but then ten years later...

Every single one of the tires on RID Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus have fallen apart just sitting on my shelf. It started happening about 10 years after I first got the figures. Was just one tire at first but now all of them have done it. They're barely holding on and I have them positioned in combined mode so the plastic covers the cracks in the tires but they can easily fall off if you're not aware of it and aren't careful.

As much as I like the feel and look of the rubber tires they just don't last like plastic tires do... I don't even think they're real rubber, just a softer plastic...

That said my G1 Reissues are all from around 2002 to 2012... I'm guessing more towards the later end of that spectrum cause I haven't noticed any problems yet. If they were from the earlier end problems should of already come up by now. But assuming I bought them all in 2012 still got another 2 years of shelf life before they turn to crap. It's also possible it might not happen with G1 as quickly cause they feel like they're a bit thicker than the RID2001 tires were.

Anyway... if I had a 3D printer probably the first thing I'd do with it is print some replacement tires for my Omega Prime... It won't be as good as when I first got the figures but it's better than what I got right now... or maybe I could find some spare tires that would fit at a hobby shop or something... I don't know.

While we're on the subject, what do other people do when your tires turn to dust?

 

Rubber tires looked great with the chrome and diecast of G1 and the details of Alt/BT. However they would almost seem out of place on today's figures. Hasbro doesn't even give the vehicles mods enough clearance underneath to roll without scraping bottom, this is a bigger issue than materials used. If the wheels aren't going to rotate anyway it doesn't matter what they're made of.

 

All my G1s tires are fine, it's my RID2001 tires that have gone to crap. The ones that are still in boxes are fine, but the ones that I have had out on display since, well, 2001 are all cracked. Superglue seemed to work well and rebonding them and preventing more cracks. lol