How to compare tires

 

When choosing your next tire for your vehicle, there is a long list of things you should consider and decide upon before you can choose which tire is best for you. Therefore, here are some useful information we all need on how to compare tires when on our next hunt, from sizes to brands to design to types and more.

Tire sizes

For you to compare tire sizes you need to check your vehicles manufacturer recommended spec, you will find it in your drivers manual or by the door panel.

You need to know your tire size for you to know the next size to purchase and to avoid getting the wrong size for your car.

To know your exact tire size, you should find a spec that looks like this P 235/65R15 82H

Now what could this mean

P 235/65R15 82H

• P – this stands for passenger which means passenger vehicle tire. Under the passenger category you will find car, SUV, minivans, crossover and small truck.

However, you could find other letters instead of the P which could be LT or ST.

• LT – Will mean light truck, which means the tire is designed for light truck vehicle
• ST – this will mean special trailer which means this tire is basically designed for heavy truck. Under this category you will find all kinds of trailers from both trailers to travel trailer etc.

Now it could be possible you find no letter before the number/digit. This will simply mean you have a metric tire.

• 235 – Now follows the three digits. These three digits simply refers to the tire width which is measured in millimeters, it simply means 235 millimeters and this measurement is taken from the outer sidewall to the inner wall.
• 65 – it is the aspect ratio; it is the ratio of the height of the tire’s cross-section to its width. In 235/65, it simply means 65{2e1e219470849bf7ec91275b0a9fbc84b08096e911ffdb617f5afdb5ab7ea907} as high as 235 is wide.
• R – simply means radial tire
• 15 – simply stands for the size of the wheel, means this tire is built for a 15’’ diameter wheel.
• 82 – which is the digit after the gap simply stands for the load index. Represents the weight the tire can support from the vehicle.
• H – this is the last letter and it represents the speed rating which means how fast the vehicle can go and still maintain its stability and control as well as its handling and cornering, in essence all that has to do with its performance.

To find tires to compare, simply enter your spec into an online tire search app. And you can also enter your vehicle’s year, make, and model. It will bring you list of tires within your spec.

Comparing tire brands

You can pick the brand you like the best or prefer, or you can simply check and read a review of the best tire brands, this should help you make a good decision on which brand to pick for your car tire.

Now what type of tire do you need

There are different type of tires, there are; All season tires, Summer tires, Winter tires, All terrain tires, mud tires, touring tires, performance tires

All season tires –

All season tires come in different tire sizes for different cars, ranging from small cars to light truck. They are designed to work the road all year-round while delivering good traction, they are good in every driving condition except on heavy snow, so if you are in a winter season you should get a winter tire.

Summer tires –

These tires are designed for summer seasons and generally when the weather is light and warm, it gives excellent grip and great handling on dry and wet roads.

Winter tires –

This tire is designed basically for winter driving surfaces. You can expect excellent grip from this tire when it is freezing, either on ice or snow driving surfaces.

All terrain tires –

This will deliver good grip all year round and all-season round, either in the mud, on ice, on snow, on wet surface on dry surface, on rough surface in summer or winter.

Mud tire –

This are basically built for mud terrains; they give good grip on mud driving surfaces.

After considering the tire that best suit the better part of your driving condition then you should consider the type of your vehicle, is it car, SUV or truck.

And would you prefer a performance tire, it is available for any of the above category. Just as it sounds it is equipped to deliver a better performance for each version of the available tires.

Performance tire are designed to deliver better grip, better handling, responsive steering and higher speed rating compared to the other tires; they are designed for enthusiastic drivers.

Tire prices

For the tire prices you can easily compare prices of different merchants online and you will get the one that is more affordable, if you trust the merchant then you can simply place an order.

Can you put different width on the same rim?

Because tires have flexible sidewalls, a single tire size will fit on a variety of rim widths. A tire’s rim width range identifies the narrowest to the widest rim widths upon which the tire is designed to be mounted during its tens-of-thousands of miles and years of service.

The width of the rim will influence the width of the tire. A tire mounted on a narrow rim would be “narrower” than if the same size tire was mounted on a wide rim.

Conclusion

There are different factors to consider when choosing a tire and there are different comparison to be done to get and make the perfect choice.

We all need to know how to compare tires in relation to the sizes, types, prices, quality and also what will best suit each of our driving style with road conditions.

Therefore, we should gather all the information we can and even after being left with few choices we should check reviews to seal our decision.

If you have any question or comment, leave them down below we will be happy to hear from you.