Ever seen some numbers on the side of a tire.  What are those?  Do they represent the dimensions of your tire? Do you need to consider these numbers while replacing your tires?





DATE OF MANUFACTURE
      One of the coolest things about the tire is that it has everything written on the tire from the dimensions to the date of manufacture. It tells about what week and year it was made. Please observe the picture below.




    Okay, these numbers in the circle represent the manufacturing date. So here if we see, the number is "5008". The first two digits represent the week and the remaining two represent the year of manufacture.

     This is for the tires which are manufactured after the year 2000. Before 2000, there used to be only three digits (eg: 107) where two of them represent the week and the remaining one represents the year.

     The reason for changing this is there used to be a lot of confusion between the decades (i,e. if we consider   107  )  "7"  can be taken as 97 or 87 which is much more confusing.


TIRE SIZE


     This is the most important thing to know while purchasing a tire. So again looking into the picture below we can find these numbers 235/55R17.


Here,

  •  "235" represents the width of the tire in millimeters, so the higher the number, the wider the tire.

  •  "45" represents the height of the sidewall, this is always in a percentage—in this particular case it is "45" percent of "235".

  •   "R" is represented as the tier is radial.

  •   "17" represents the diameter of the wheel in inches.



LOAD RATING


    It is exactly how much weight the vehicle could carry safely based on tire size and pressure. For this case, we have "103V XL".




   "103" represents the load rating (or load index) which means it can handle "1929" lbs on one tier and if you multiply it with four (1929X4= 7716 lbs) you will get your vehicle's load-carrying capacity.

    This should be less than your vehicle weight. If the weight is more you are overloading your tiers and that is unsafe.

You can also check your tire's rating by clicking here

SPEED RATING

    The speed rating is the maximum speed at which the tire can be safely driven.  These ratings range from N (87 mph) up to Y (186 mph).

    In this case, we have "V" which represents speed rating (149mph) You can also check your tire's rating by clicking here.


MAXIMUM INFLATION PRESSURE 

   This is the maximum amount of pressure that the tire can handle without exploding or becoming dangerous. In our case, it is "XL" that is 41 psi (280kpa)

   It also depends on the vehicle type, higher for heavy vehicles, and lower for small vehicles. This is not the pressure that you can put in your tiers but it is the pressure that a tire can handle.



There are a few more things but knowing this is sufficient.


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