Load rating on tires

[sendwongy1]

Hey Guys,

I apologise for bringing up the wheels and tires issue again. I went to a few tire dealers today and was given quite a bit of info on wheels and tires.

I have decided to go for Michellin Syncrone's as many of the tyre dealers have told me that its a much quiter tire. And they where priced at $215 per tire which was the exact same price as the Pirelli Scorpions.

However, there are two issues that I am not sure about. Many of the tire dealers were talking about load ratings with the different brand of tires and they were saying that the XC has a load rating of 98.

But I checked the info on the fuel cover and it says that the load rating is 95.

So my question is what exactly is the load rating of the tires for the xc.

The tires dealers were warning me about the importance of load ratings as they can void the car warrenty and also the insurance companies will not cover your car if the load ratings were below.

I was also looking at some 17" chrome wheels that I really wanted to get but the Michellin Syncrone's have a load rating of 97 (Art can you clarify this).

So my question is, if I do decide to upgrade to the 17" rims, should I worry about the load ratings of the Michellins.

The size of tire on the 17" rims will be 225/55/17

Thanks for your help

Regards

Eugene

[Hiro's XC]

It's a 95. The difference is minimal too. Now if you were looking at going to a tire in the 80's you would have issues when the car was loaded. Their computer is wrong. Wouldn't be the first time someone put some wrong info in the system.

Jason

[wiz]

Eugene, these are the max load ratings from the Pirelli & Michelin web sites. I collected this data when we bought the car in August of 2002:

Max load rating of Pirelli Scorpion S/T is 1653 lbs.
Max load rating of the 16" Michelin Pilot Sport A/S is also 1653 lbs.
Max load rating of the 16" Michelin 4x4 Synchrone is 1503 lbs.

[sendwongy1]

Wiz, Hiro,

Thanks heaps for your replies. I have decided to stick with the OEM wheels for the momment and go with the Michelin Syncrone's. But theres a one month wait for the tires. Keep you guys when I get the new tires.

Regards

Eugene

[Stu in Oregon]

sendwongy,

I replaced the Scorpians on our '01 with Synchrones and was so happy with the change that I replaced the Scorpians on our '02 despite the fact that the car only had 4000 miles on it.  I never looked back and definately felt the expense was worth it.  The Scorpians are not that great of a tire and you will be happy with the change.  In between there I experimented with Nokian WRs and although they were awesome in rain, snow and dirt, they were too "trucky" around town for us.  The wait will be worth it.

[wiz]

Stu, how are the Synchrones in rain and snow? The OD of the 215-65-16 tire is 27.5", I assume you've had no issues with that?

[sendwongy1]

Hey Wiz,

What would a slight change in the 27" diameter do to the car? Will it cause problems with the AWD system.

Regards

Eugene

[wiz]

I very much doubt it, Eugene. Better to go up than down since the tires wear. http://xc70.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif So long as you have four wheels with the same OD then you will be fine with the viscous-coupled AWD. Half an inch is about the biggest difference I've read about so I just wondered if Stu had experienced any issues. Bet he hasn't. http://xc70.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Hiro's XC]

You could actually go to any size wheel and tire as long as they were all the same. The only thing that would be off is the speedo/odometer. A common practice amongst 4x4ers and theonly fix is for a different gear in the speedo cable. Well with ours being electronic you would have to rewrite a few thousand lines of code, like I said no big deal..  http://xc70.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

Jason