diff --git a/Lib/test/test_xmlrpc.py b/Lib/test/test_xmlrpc.py
index ed4c6d189317da102f05d96e5c1fae8beb63fcdb..0ef91dcb012e3cf279e93c018dad89c2a608694b 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_xmlrpc.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_xmlrpc.py
@@ -76,6 +76,16 @@ class XMLRPCTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
         (newdt,), m = xmlrpclib.loads(s, use_datetime=0)
         self.assertEquals(newdt, xmlrpclib.DateTime('%sT11:41:23'%today))
 
+    def test_bug_1164912 (self):
+        d = xmlrpclib.DateTime()
+        ((new_d,), dummy) = xmlrpclib.loads(xmlrpclib.dumps((d,), 
+                                            methodresponse=True))
+        self.assert_(isinstance(new_d.value, str))
+
+        # Check that the output of dumps() is still an 8-bit string
+        s = xmlrpclib.dumps((new_d,), methodresponse=True)
+        self.assert_(isinstance(s, str))
+
     def test_dump_big_long(self):
         self.assertRaises(OverflowError, xmlrpclib.dumps, (2L**99,))
 
diff --git a/Lib/xmlrpclib.py b/Lib/xmlrpclib.py
index 069ebcc6f5dc2b7e5a247571391161fa834b4a1f..6fb6c68db51819ae1d7344701285e23bceb5cd20 100644
--- a/Lib/xmlrpclib.py
+++ b/Lib/xmlrpclib.py
@@ -388,6 +388,7 @@ class DateTime:
         return "<DateTime %s at %x>" % (repr(self.value), id(self))
 
     def decode(self, data):
+        data = str(data)
         self.value = string.strip(data)
 
     def encode(self, out):