Date:         Fri, 22 Aug 1997 18:00:09 +0000
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         John Anderson <vwbus@NETBIZ.NET>
Subject:      Re: Yokohama Y370 vs. Y356

> As I recall from actually reading one of those stickers on the tread of a
> tire, you want low letters and high numbers.  C or D tires are probably not
> that great, especially when combined with the fact they are $40 or $50.  A
> more realistic price for an 8-ply light truck tire would be around $80-100
> I would think.

Scott confuses the treadwear rating system with the load rating
system, a C load rater is a 6 ply (bias throughback) tire, a D rater
an 8 ply.  And the C rated Y356 was indeed a sub $50 tire with the
correct load and inflation capabilities, simply not much of an all
weather design.  In the small sizes of 185R14 195/70R14 there are
quite a few sub $70 choices, call the Tire Rack and find out, the last budget
leader was the Conti  I believe about $50 each.  And remember that a
lot of "light truck" LT rated tires are in fact B or normal load
rated and not at all suitable for vans.  Of course we've been through
this this all innumerable times before.  C load rated or reinforced
at least with inflations of 44 and 40 psi maximumm, load rating is
real high escapes me at the moment 1600 lb/ tire or so? more?

My general point as always is that the correct tires are merely a
phone call and a couple days away from Tire Rack or Discount Tire, or
maybe even local if you comparison shop and force somebody to match.

The treadwear, traction, temperature ratings are largely useless,
while supposed to compare all tires to a DOT standard tire, they vary
widely and unbelievably from manufacturer to manufacturer.  Scott is
correct that an A in temperature or traction is the superior rating.

John
vwbus@netbiz.net