I went to Sam’s club to buy tires with my tires size in hand. I saw the P245/65R17 tires I wanted but when I spoke with the salesperson he said those tires weren’t for my vehicle…I said those are the tires size listed in my vehicle. He said the tires I liked were 105S rated and I needed 105T rated tires. I went home and looked up what those were and discovered them to be the load and speed ratings. Do I really need tires rated for 118 MPH for a Honda Pilot? THe S tires are rated to 112 MPH which I’m sure I’ll never go that fast.
You don’t “need” a tire rated for higher speeds than you will ever drive. But car manufacturers are required for liability reasons to equip vehicles with tires rated at least as fast as the vehicle can go. Your Pilot probably can go faster than 112 mph, which is why is didn’t come with S rated tires.
As the owner, you can choose how much risk to accept. If you know not to drive faster than 112 mph, you can choose to put an S rated tire on. However, tire dealers don’t want to install tires with a lower rating than stock for the same liability reasons.
Read more here: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=35
jesmed…thanks. Do you know if there is any substantial difference in tire construction or performance between a 105t vs. 105s tire? With only 6 MPH difference between the two…you wouldn’t think there is that big of a difference between the two. Thanks
Caveat: I’m not an expert, just an educated consumer/engineer. But my two cents is, the difference between 112 mph and 118 mph is trivial, as long as you never exceed 100 mph or so, which I would never do.
And the S tire you’re looking at has the correct load rating, so it can carry the same load as the T tire, albeit at slightly lower max speed.
If it were my car, I wouldn’t hesitate to put on the S tires, because I know I’d never get close to 100 mph. But again, that’s just me.
I’d also suggest you take a look at tire survey results on tirerack.com. Lots of user feedback there on many tires. You might find that the S tire you think you want isn’t so good anyway and change your mind.
Tire Rack lists both S and T rated tires, so I’d have no problem putting S rated tires on it, if I owned it. That said, I might go for T if I drove extensively on the freeway, with a load (family trip, say). Higher speed ratings mean better heat tolerance.
The price difference between S and T isn’t that great, anyway, is it?
$119 for the S and 149 for the T…pretty big difference…don’t get it. But I think the S is on sale
I’d look at other shops. Sams? Discount Tire? Even though they should, you can’t make Costco sell you tires if they don’t want to.
You might check with Tire Rack for the tires you want, see what the installed cost would be for you (they have agreements with shops around to country to install tires they sell).
Didn’t know that…will take a look…thanks guys.