Tyres are manufactured under specific criteria that define what they can safely do. Tyres are made to withstand certain things when they are on the road, mounted on your car. And how much load they can carry is one aspect of that. The majority of tyres carry coded markings on them, which correspond to their load carrying capacity. The load capacity of a tyre determines what weight each tyre is able to carry. It is necessary that you check with your vehicle’s manufacturer what kind of tyres should you mount on your car.
The load rating is generally found after the diameter reading and before the speed rating on the sidewall marking. Take a look at the image below. We are using an example of 15 inch tyre made by General Tyre & Rubber Company since it is an OEM tyre for our local Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic:
195/65 R15 91H
‘91’ is the load index and ‘H‘ is the speed rating. Take a look at the chart below to find how much weight in kilograms each tyre is capable of holding. 91 load index corresponds to 615 kg of weight. It means each tyre on your locally assembled Civic or Corolla can bear 615 kilograms safely. And it is not just about load carrying capability. Maybe in a static vehicle, you can put far more load than just 615 kg. But when factors like speed of the vehicle, air pressure in tyres, condition of the surface you are traveling on, and temperature etc., are put into play, you need to be assured about how much beating the tyre is capable of getting. 4×615 equals to 2460. It means all four tyres of your car can lift upto 2460 kilos of weight, combined.
We often see cars, especially public transport vehicles, carrying so many people that you fear for the lives of the passengers on board. You can see that the tyres are touching their limits. Everything has a limit, and we definitely try to test those limits. But problem here is that by testing your tyre’s limits, you are not only playing with your and your passenger’s lives, but also with other motorists on the road.
There are multiple problems with the article.
1. On the one hand it says, “We are using an example of 15 inch tyre”. On the other hand it is written “165/65R14 91H” as the caption of the photograph.
2. The article is incomplete as it mentions passenger and public transport vehicles while it does not tell that manufacturers make available different tyres for both types of vehicles. Even on General tyre website there are dedicated sections Passenger car tyre category and Light truck tyre category. Commercial vehicle tyres are noted with “C” suffix such as 195R14C. They always come with 80 profile and there are no other options. Ont he other hand passenger car tyres do not a suffix but sometimes have a prefix, such as P165/…… Vehicle inspector can check according to the registration class of vehicle (passenger or commercial) and fine accordingly if you are using passenger car tyres on commercial vehicle.
3. The article is factually incomplete since it does not tell who has developed the load index rating and who maintains the standard?
4. Some physics problems are also there as the sum of 4-wheels load capacity cannot be the total weight of the car. Specifically this sentence: “It means all four tyres of your car can lift upto 2460 kilos of weight, combined.”. As the car is not always under equal load distribution, during acceleration, braking, turning or going uphill or downhill the weight on one wheel may increase. Even in normal situation the trunk is empty and rear wheels have less weight as compared to front wheels where the engine is located. However the rear wheels stand a greater chance to be overloaded because of passenger or cargo overloading, therefore more care is necessary there. All this means that the combined load capacity of a single tyre should be far greater than the “actual laden weight divided by 4” of the vehicle to allow for weight shifting. Which is actually the situation as the laden weight of these cars is far less than 2400 kgs but still a single tyre can get overloaded and fail.
5. The article is incomplete also because it fails to mention that on every tyre there is another piece of information where it mentions that max load capacity will only be achieved at maximum air pressure, and maximum air pressure is also noted there. The article just casually mentions air pressure along with other random factors not closely associated with load rating. Now you may already know that the tyre maximum air pressure is completely independent of the recommended air pressure by your car’s manufacturers.
What is unfathomable is that writers at Pakwheels blog come up with half-cooked articles with inaccuracies, incomplete information and even blunders such as typographical mistakes. All this passes through the editor and proof reading section too and the writers actually get paid for this level of performance. It is no coincidence that only the technical articles are far more pathetic than the others. Please hire good engineers and pay them their worth.
exactly right … one should be aware of the Tyre weight load limit, the article is helpful … the side wall tells you the max speed, max load and size of-course …
As you’ve written so much here in the comments, please write an article too so that writers at Pakwheels can relate. Thank you.
Thank you so much for your reply.
Kindly take some time to write few articles for PW blog.
There are many who would benefit from your valuable contribution.
Thanks.
If this as job application, trust me it won’t work like that. Please apply through proper channel that is: http://pakeventures.simplicant.com/
One must appreciate both the original writer who has provided information on tyres I was not aware of and the writer who has given his comments. This is how we will learn and improve our knowledge.
Exactly, you’re correct. But there’s no harm appreciating the hard work done. Isn’t it?
Thank you for the invite. I have my own reservations accepting them:
1. There is practically no viewership of the blog. For a blog entry, 5000 or so views are not much.
2. The blog entries do not turn up on search engines. The forum entries turn up in search far higher and on many topics, usually 3rd or 4th link is a Pakwheels thread. Why should I write for low impact?
In point # 1 & 2, I digress, because of low viewership, many are not going to benefit.
3. The same username as Pakwheels forums cannot be used for commenting in the blogs. Do not understand why this isolation has been made.
4. Pakwheels blog does not have good brand value. The sentiment in the society is that writers just write to meet a quota. This sentiment has been expressed by me and others in the comments many times. I have my personal brand value and would not feel comfortable using my real name to write blog entries here. To put it bluntly: I will lose respect in my social circle by writing for Pakwheels blog. On the other hand if I write for Pakwheels forums, I will gain respect. (This was some very open feedback, please take it positively.)
5. Most of the topics are ‘charba’ anyway, and that information is better found on the internet, while many unique topics never discussed before could be covered, they have not been.
6. The quality of information on the forums is far better than the blog. If you see, many people writing serious content on the forums are also not contributing on the blog (this builds upon point #4).
7. Usually I write a comment in technical articles, where I see that the information is factually incomplete. This has nothing to do with the blogger who wrote that post. I do not intend to demean or insult the writer (but sometimes I get frustrated at how Pakwheels blog has gone downhill and I also openly wonder how someone could get paid for this – remember I do not get paid for writing technically oriented comments – if just had to express my my anger or criticism, it could be esily done in or two out-of-dictionary words. I only do it for my love of Pakwheels – I existed long before PW blog did).
8. My target is the reader. I tend to fill in the gaps, remove confusion and complete the incomplete information. If incomplete information is given, then Pakwheels is no different from the ‘ustaad’ mechanics everywhere around us.
9. The pay is pathetic. What I have to offer is more valuable than the pay structure noted on “Write for us” page. Therefore I’d rather update the information in the comments on my own terms (=when I feel like it and when I have the time) and for free rather than taking tuppence and feeling undignified. Because you know the best things in the world (like mom’s love, for example) are free.
10. Replacing staff and inviting critics to join the team is not a good management strategy. Critics have their own place in the society and serve a useful purpose. What Pakwheels could do is to offer trainings to their routine bloggers (I mean those that are monthly wages employees) at home and at abroad and bring them up to mark, rather than just getting impressed by anybody like me and giving them an offer – just to silence the critic.
11. Even if I write the articles, it is the editor’s and proofreader’s job to get it streamlined for wide viewership. This is not being done correctly, as spelling mistakes, sentence structure and other problems are evident in every article. Even if I can write good English I will not take the pain of doing the job of editor and proofreader. Therefore good content will land on their desk and then not receive the treatment it should and hence will not have the effectiveness it should. Maybe I don’t make much sense here, but writers are the one with the idea, correcting the English is somebody else’s job. If you see, Gen Musharraf is not a avid writer. He wrote a book, the ideas were his, but the editor is the one who corrected the English and converted the sentences into presentable and fluid prose.
Again, thank you for your invite. I’d rather not write articles for Pakwheels until the quality standard, proofreading, editing, pay structure and brand value of Pakwheels blog has improved.
I have taken the pain of writing 700+ words because I feel the pain for Pakwheels. This comment has some heart-felt input. Please take note of it somewhere and then delete this comment.
Thank you for your input. I hope management takes notice of your reservations. Best regards.
I don’t how you’d lose respect in your social circle by merely trying to inform people. But I get it, that’s why, people yearn to get published in Dawn despite a similar paying policy between the two. Brand value, of course, but which was built by people, people like you and me. Where do we get that here?
What you write on forum may appear on the search engine to those knowing the keywords, but blog serves an entirely different set of people. The people not in your social circle. The people, who want to read about cars but do not have time, neither the patience to go on a scavenger hunt on the forums.
You say that we’re going downhill, but we’ve given a much wider impact on the auto culture of Pakistan other than the fact that we’ve gone to give a traffic growth of 50 percent over the preceding quarter, reaching out to half-a-million readers now. I can get you the Google Analytics, its not just my word.
You’d be seeing our reach extend to paper as well but I agree, the editorial is not up to the marks, but we do not try to reach a quota. There are only three automakers in Pk, with just a couple of cars. Not exactly a vibrant industry so from where do we create quality content?
You will write for a brand but not help in creating a brand so our access to good resource is quite limited and yet, our reach has only grown to companies realizing our impact and are now sponsoring guides and stuff just so we’re able to better inform and create quality automotive literature.
Almost, Blog is the front face now, we’ve impacted the industry in such a way that PakWheelers are taken quite seriously, even by the likes of Audi while BMW will continue pestering us to mention them here. Whereas, from financial analysts to business reporters, they call us for every bit of information they need on auto industry and then, have us review their articles.
Your ‘social circle’, which will disown you for not writing for a brand, should understand our limitations as well, because at the end of the day, we’re a cash-strapped start-up, using PakWheels as a distribution channel as an incubator while the current editorial world, has knowledge of grammar and sentence structuring but not the creativity to create automotive content. If we’re able to do the later by focusing on content, may be we would be able to afford a good editor who’d do that job and become worthy of running ‘brand names’ like yours here?
Plus, all tyre articles’ are vetted by engineers at General Tyre and our team writes article with a broad scope, and cannot go on to address every single detail which will attract/interest a brand like you, but not the majority who does not have the interest in cars but read to educate themselves because at the end of the day, everyone owns cars and wants to know how to prolong its life through better maintenance, etc.
But I do appreciate your criticism, hope to see you around?