The Difference in Tire Ratings
Written on August 30, 2007 – 12:08 pm | by gaulardcom |
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Tomorrow, I have an appointment with a local tire service center to replace the tires on my car. When I purchased the car (1998 Honda Accord - V6), I think it had around 76,000 miles on it. The tires weren’t the greatest, so I had them changed. The ones I got were 50,000 mile tires.
Well, as it turns out, I didn’t end up being the greatest tire rotator, so I can feel flat spots in the tires now. The car currently has about 147,000 miles on it, so I don’t feel too bad.
Earlier this week, I pulled into the tire place and a nice guy walked out to me with a clip board. I thought this was kind of nice. He was quite friendy. I told him what I was looking for and he wrote down the tire size, rating and all that stuff. He noticed that the car currently had “H” rated tires, yet the car called for “V” rated tires. That’s the speed rating. We went inside and picked out the new tires that I wanted. They have to order them, so my appointment is Friday.
I was asking the person inside about what the rating meant. She didn’t have the greatest response, so I looked here. This has some helpful information, but I am still looking for more. “Speed Rating” doesn’t help much.
I found an article called,”The Truth About Performance Tires” that helped somewhat. The website says, “This “V” meant the tire had been safely tested in the laboratory to stay together at speeds up to 149 mph. Thus, the modern day high performance tire was introduced in America.” If you read the article, you can get a feel of what the other ratings mean, such as “H,” “S” and “Z” ratings.
The “V” rated tires is equipped to handle speeds up to 149 MPH. I am very happy to hear that because I have always thought something was holding me back in that car.
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Tags: Automotive, Cars, tires
One Response to “The Difference in Tire Ratings”
By Salta Atlas on Aug 30, 2007 | Reply
Hi,
You can find an explanation for the tire ratings and the NHTSA tire treadwear check test you were searching for above at the website above.
Good luck with the “v” tires and don’t get any speeding tickets.