Tyre Tips

I was having lunch at the mamak restaurant in Ampang Park. As usual, I grabbed the local daily on the cashier counter. Its free reading during lunch.

I discovered an article on some useful tips for choosing tyres. I remembered vaguely somebody has forwarded me a similar article a few years back but age has taken its toll. Tried to take a snap of the page on my phone but the outcome was so blury. Perhaps its time to ugrade to a higher mega pixel camera phone.

The article was so useful for beginners like me I end up copying the facts on my phone. Some of u may have known this but it still took me a good 10 minutes to get the facts down.

Before purchasing any tyre one should know the manufacturing date. It is printed as a four digit number. The first two numbers represent the week while the last two represent the year. For example 2606 meant the tyre was manufactured in week 26 of year 2006. To convert the week into month, we just multiply the week with 12 and divide by 52, so 26 x 12 / 52 = 6. Waalah...the tyre was manufactured in June 2006. Make sure the manufacturing date is less than 3 years. Normally the tyre shops will sell the near to expiry tyres at a discounted rate, so do not look at price factor alone in choosing your tyre.

Next, u'll see the typical coding on the tyre 175/70 R13 82T. What does all this mean?

1. The first no (175) stands for the width of the tyre.
2. 70 represent the height of the tyre (i.e. 70% of the width, in this case the height should be 122.50...try to measure your tyre to test the accuracy)
3. R stands for tyre radial
4. 13 is the rim diameter.
5. 82 is the max. weight for the tyre. The article said 82 is equivalent to 475kg so for 4 wheels the max weight (berat dengan muatan) is 1,900 kg.
6. T is the max. speed a tyre can afford. Here's the complete coding for speed:

S - 180 km/h
T - 190 km/h
U - 200 km/h
H - 210 km/h - don't ask me how H got here
V - 240 km/h
Z - 260 km/h
W - 270 km/h
Y - 300 km/h
ZR - > 300km/h

I guess for city driving an S is sufficient :). So there u have it. Tyre guides for idiots.


Signing off at 6.00 p.m.