I don’t come on here to pick fights, I have far better things to do with my time. However, when I see bogus advice doled out, I will take the time to dispute it.
It isn’t a statement advocating the use of lower speed rated tires
Say what you will now, but this statement says otherwise-
Yes, you can put H rated tires on the car safely
I would never pay more for tires to get a greater speed rating.
But would you pay more for tires to get the correct speed rating for your car?
Or perhaps to reword the question…would you pay less to get the wrong tires for your car?
Like I said before, I’ve replaced V rated tires with H for customers, for people I know and after discussing it. But I don’t think you can fault a shop for not doing so.
If your car uses Toyota Super Long Life Coolant, and you take your car in for water pump replacement and ask them to use universal one-size fits all instead of the proper coolant, would you fault them for their adherence to manufacturer specifications?
Regardless what tires were OE on my car I wouldn’t pay significantly more to replace them with that rating when a comparable quality tire at a lesser price was available. The same people who try to sell me nitrogen and use “free inspections” to trump up outrageous repair estimates and attempt to frighten the unwary with warnings of impending doom just driving home without the repairs are the people marketing the EXCLUSIVE but CRITICAL speed ratings.
I recall a line from a movie, a lady insists that she wouldn’t be caught dead wearing cultured pearls. And it seems likewise that a great many men wouldn’t be caught dead driving on T rated tires.
The roads might be 50% devoid of traffic if every vehicle with what could be called inappropriate tires was removed from it.
The roads might be 50% devoid of traffic if every vehicle with what could be called inappropriate tires was removed from it.
Works for me.
By now ank should have bought a new set of tires, I wonder what he chose.
TT, your statement that bogus statements need to be corrected is exactly why I wrote the post correcting your following statement:
Perhaps, just perhaps, the speed rating is not just a speed rating. I suspect that it combines a number of factors but when it was derived, defining it as a speed rating was a means to help consumers more readily choose an appropriate tire. However, since then, performance demand has increased to the point this rating is now some astronomical value that seems to make no sense to the consumer anymore.
That is not at all what the speed rating is. It’s a formal safety rating defined by the D.O.T. and based upon formal testing IAW approved D.O.T. protocols. To say it was only derived as a means to help consumers more readily choose an appropriate tire needs to be corrected. All of the ratings on the tire sidewall and formal safety categories based upon D.O.T mandates. Consumers, and our readers, need to have correct information and to understand what these ratings represent.
So far, you haven’t quoted me on any bogus statements that I’ve made in this thread. All you’ve done is simply claim that I meant something different from my statement. If I post a bogus statement, I admit it. You should do the same. It’s the manly thing to do.
The same people who try to sell me nitrogen and use “free inspections” to trump up outrageous repair estimates and attempt to frighten the unwary with warnings of impending doom just driving home without the repairs are the people marketing the EXCLUSIVE but CRITICAL speed ratings.
@RodKnox
But here’s the difference, the car manufacturer has NOTHING to gain by specifying a more expensive (albeit slightly) tire for the car. In fact they actually suffer the same way you do because they have to initially outfit the car with that same tire! Don’t you think if they could spend less and put a cheaper tire on the car they would???
TSM, you’ve gone down a path that, frankly, I am surprised you’d stoop to that level. I had a higher regard of you and your integrity than that, previously. It doesn’t justify any further response on my part…
I think they’re ( costco hourly employees ) mis reading the guidelines.
’‘O.E. came with V rated tires’’ is 100% different than the nonexistant MUST have that they’re trying to sell you.
Put H on it.
I suspect that Costco is simply following the advice of their lawyers. Corporate lawyers’ functions are to protect the company from exposure. Anyone tasked with that job will always interpret requirements based not on what they were intended to do, but rather based on how they might possibly be interpreted in a civil lawsuit. I don’t think it’s a misreading so much as a reading of how much exposure Costco would have if they were to put a lower rated tire on, an accident happened, Costco were sued, and a lawyer could convince a jury that the tires might have been a contributing factor.
TT, I also see no point in protracting our disagreement. I disliked the direction you took it when you alleged that I made statements that I never made because you were upset at being corrected. I too will post no further comments on the issue. There’s no point in doing so. Everyone is free to read the entire thread and make their own judgements.
Tire speed ratings and the emperor’s new clothes have a lot in common.
In a sense perhaps. With a critical safety criteria engineers will always build in a design “error margin”. How much is based on the Failure Mode Effects Analysis. Basically that means that if the item fails catastrophically, what will the effects be. In the case of tire design, I suspect the “error margin” is intentionally substantial, perhaps even as high as 50%. What that would mean is that a tire rated at 139 mph max was probably tested to 208 mph without catastrophic failure.
What this really does is provide a hidden safety factor for the users. It also provides an excellent exposure buffer for any lawsuits.
I seriously doubt if a manufacturer would rate a tire without proper testing or dishonestly based upon the testing. If an investigation by an oversight committee or by lawyers for a plaintiff exposed falsification of the data, the penalties would probably include criminal charges (perhaps fraud) in addition to financial exposure that would cripple the company.
Granted, the emperor truly believed he had new cloths. But I doubt if he ran any tests.
It’s the tire buying public that is being caught with its pants down, @tsm. They are convinced that their car is so grand that it requires special tires and they have a special price. The tire ratings, like having a speedometer that reads up to 160 mph, gives the aura of greatness, speed and power and that’s worth the greater price to many. The people that market cars and tires obviously see a significant increase in profit from marketing high performance to those who cherish such an image.
Rod, there’s a lot of truth in what you say. Unfortunately for the consumer, that marketing philosophy of promoting tires with higher-than-needed ratings ends up being a corporate requirement to mount only those tires. Not only does the company protect itself, but they just happen to make a bit more profit too. The consumer loses.
So let me try to put this in perspective for everyone:
There is a correlation between speed rating and tire failure. The higher the speed rating, the less likely a tire will fail. In other words, it isn’t a clear “Go - No Go” difference. It’s a lessening of the risk.
So it is understandable that a vehicle manufacturer would specify a speed rating well above the capability of the car - and well above the speed limit.
Second, while speed rating is NOT tied to handling and ride, there is a tendency for tire manufacturers to bias their higher speed rated tires towards better handling and traction, and worse ride, fuel economy, and wear. However, there are enough exceptions to this that careful selection becomes important.
Third, there are a ton of lawyers out there who can build a case around the use of a lower speed rated tire. As an expert on the subject, I can testify that anyone who would apply a lower speed rated tire is doing something inherently unsafe.
That’s why many tire shops won’t do it. If something bad happens, the financial risk can be staggering.
My OEM (2010 Kia Forte SX) Goodyear Eagle 215/45/17 V rated tires were replaced by Granada Touring (parent corporation of Toyo) W rated (168mph) tires. They also have a higher load rating of 91. They were $125 each mounted and balanced, which was less than replacement Goodyears that did not make it to 20,000 miles. Overkill on a 134mph car? Definitely. Of course it has a 150mph speedometer to impress the ignorant. I have only driven 80mph to avoid becoming a speed bump on an Idaho interstate and once touched 90mph to pass a total jerk who was driving 45mph in a 55mph zone for the purpose of seeing how many vehicles he could stack-up behind his Ford Expedition. Upon reaching an extra lane passing zone he would floor it preventing anyone from passing then return to 45mph. I was in the pole position of the stacked up traffic and finally had just had enough of this bulls**t. The only way I am going to exceed 168mph is being dropped out of an airplane but perhaps the tires would survive the impact. These tires are over 12,000 miles and have 75% of original tread. I would be comfortable with H rated tires but why pay the same for less. My car’s door frame sticker does not list speed rating. The owner’s manual lists speed rating/mph (not including W or Y) in the interpreting tire sidewall markings section. There is no statement requiring replacement of OEM tires with tires of the same speed rating. I assume COSTCO employees are just reading the sidewall. If I went to COSTCO for replacement tires would they insist I needed W speed rating?
No, that is not correct.
When you go up to the counter in their tire department, you are asked for the make, model, and model year of your vehicle. If there was an engine option, they will also ask about that detail. They enter the info into their computer, and that gives them the specs that were provided by the vehicle manufacturer.
A semi-related Costco tire tip that I just picked up: Order them online and have them shipped to your warehouse. It can save you money. I just got tires, and my warehouse was going to charge me $60 more than I paid by ordering them online because they’re trying to drive traffic to their website. Fortunately I had looked online first, and knew their price was off base, so I pulled out my phone, ordered the tires, and got an instant $60 discount.
Also, yes, now that I’ve bought tires from them, I can confirm that they will refuse to install any tire that doesn’t meet or exceed OEM specs. They will still sell you the tires (you can even have them shipped to your house), but you have to find someone else to install them.
If you’re really looking to get away with something here, buy the tires, then take the wheels off your car and bring them to a tire shop with the tires and tell them to install them - don’t tell them what car it’s for. Most tire shops will do this.
I’m not a fan of Costco’s auto policies, generally, and this does nothing to change that. I’d sooner go to my local garage, where I can have Carl put on any number of new or used tires that fit, on whatever axle I, as the owner and final authority as to the operation of my vehicle, choose.
As we’ve gone back and forth here re: inspections, we’ve learned that mechanical failures are seldom the proximate cause of accidents. Thus, I think we currently have an extreme risk-averse bias with tires that has not existed until recently in the US…and one that is excessive, bordering on Phobia.
(I might point out that much of the present tire phobia…6/32 minimum, new tires on rear, never, ever, use a rope plug…came about as studies determined just how damn BAD the median driver is at handling oversteer-induced loss of control. The good news, here, is that correction for oversteer, while counter-intuitive, is readily learned. This STRONGLY suggests that simply learning how to control oversteer would be much smarter than becoming even more tire-phobic!)
VDCdriver Long Lost Magliozzi Brother
6:47AM
“I assume COSTCO employees are just reading the sidewall”
No, that is not correct.
When you go up to the counter in their tire department, you are asked for the make, model, and model year of your vehicle. If there was an engine option, they will also ask about that detail. They enter the info into their computer, and that gives them the specs that were provided by the vehicle manufacturer.
Sorry. The only thing I have purchased at COSTCO is a couple of COSTCO dogs for lunch. I have never been a member as I have no use for 55 gallon drums of laundry detergent or 5 gallon jugs of catsup.
My tire problem with WALMART concerned dimensions not speed rating and they read those on the door frame sticker. The only other problem I experienced with WALMART automotive service was the first oil and filter change on my Kia. When it was ready for pick-up the counter guy presented me with a bill that was $3 more than it should have been. I saw the extra charge was for a pint of oil that exceeded the 5 quart maximum of a standard oil and filter change. Having read the owner’s manual I knew the capacity was 4.5 quarts so I was quite concerned about the extra quart. We went to the car and checked the oil level which was fine. He called the tech over and asked how much oil he had installed. The tech answered “4.5 quarts, that’s what it is supposed to have”. The counter guy showed me the computer which indicated 5.5 quarts. He adjusted my bill and reported the error. Fortunately the tech used a printed manual and did not use the computer.