# Load ratings question



## jakkaroo (Feb 12, 2011)

Can someone please enlighten me on load ratings and why we need them on a economy car that hauls,well nothing but me around.I can understand that load ratings are for trucks that haul...alot.These cars weigh 3klbs and discount tire would not sell me a tire that is 5mm smaller in diameter because that tire would not me the load ratings for the cruze.I started to question him on how 5mm will make a difference if my cruze is lighter than what there database shows,he still said"no" the load rating will be off.So i am puzzled on if my car is 100lb lighter than most cruze will 5mm less really affect my safety of hauling.


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## H3LLON3ARTH (Dec 16, 2011)

Is the real question do you wanna risk it for being 5 mm lower.

Sent From My Galaxy Note 3.
Which is bigger than my hand.


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## jakkaroo (Feb 12, 2011)

H3LLON3ARTH said:


> Is the real question do you wanna risk it for being 5 mm lower.
> 
> Sent From My Galaxy Note 3.
> Which is bigger than my hand.


.It would not lower anything.


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## sciphi (Aug 26, 2011)

A smaller tire cannot carry as much as a larger tire. And, with the car fully loaded down, bouncing over broken pavement at 70 mph on a 100*F day, having that capacity is important. That load rating is determined by a worst-case scenario than your particular circumstances. You may never use your Cruze like that, but other owners may. And say you sell your Cruze to somebody. They just may load up the family and take it road-tripping to Death Valley. 

And, what tire size did you want to get?


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## jakkaroo (Feb 12, 2011)

Right now i have a 225/35/19 and would like to keep a 225,not going down the road of a 215 just yet.Discount wants me to get a 225/40.I know the sidewalls broke down because i drove about 300 miles on them at 20psi rated at max 52psi and there cheap achellies tires.I would never plan to sell my cruze with my wheels on it,i would sell it completely stock.


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## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

Don't forget that the Cruze is a 3,000 lb car, so the tires must not only carry you, your passengers, and your cargo, they must also carry the car. The OEM tires on the Cruze are load rated 94, or 1477 lbs each. This means that each axle can safely carry 2954 lbs, or roughly the entire weight of the car. Add four adults - 180 lbs each for 720 lbs and you're up to 1837 lbs on each axle. The front axle carries about two thirds of the Cruze's weight when empty. The front axle on my ECO MT has a max weight of slightly less than 2900 lbs, giving some safety measure for hard stops even with two 180 lb adults in the front seats.

This is why the tire dealership didn't want to sell you tires with a lower load rating than the OEM tires - they didn't want to be liable in case of an accident involving tire blow out.


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## Smurfenstein (Nov 16, 2011)

The reason why Discount wont do it is because if you order a tire from them, they install it, and then something happens, they're liable. You can stand in front of them with a written contract saying that you wont go after them if something happens, and they still wont sell you the tires, simply due to liability.

Case in point, find the tires you want, buy them as "stand alone" to not be installed in store and just as pick up; then take them to a store on the side that will install them for you. If you still run into problems, tell them you're putting them on a spark or something lighter that the load rating will be adequate for.


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## jakkaroo (Feb 12, 2011)

obermd said:


> Don't forget that the Cruze is a 3,000 lb car, so the tires must not only carry you, your passengers, and your cargo, they must also carry the car. The OEM tires on the Cruze are load rated 94, or 1477 lbs each. This means that each axle can safely carry 2954 lbs, or roughly the entire weight of the car. Add four adults - 180 lbs each for 720 lbs and you're up to 1837 lbs on each axle. The front axle carries about two thirds of the Cruze's weight when empty. The front axle on my ECO MT has a max weight of slightly less than 2900 lbs, giving some safety measure for hard stops even with two 180 lb adults in the front seats.
> 
> This is why the tire dealership didn't want to sell you tires with a lower load rating than the OEM tires - they didn't want to be liable in case of an accident involving tire blow out.


Ok,this makes sense.The tires i currently have are a 88 so 1235 so well just round up and say 2400 per axle that 4800 for the whole car.Honestly i never carry more than 3 people in the car and the way my car is set up i never drive over 65 so need for heavy braking.
The load chart helped me alot,makes me understand what load rating does but im still in a very safe limit when i ride solo which is 99%of the time

sorry for grammar few beers in


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## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

A load rating of 88 is 400 lbs below the front axle weight limit. I wouldn't drive a Cruze with a load rated 88 tire - period. You never know when you're going to be cut off and have to stand the car on its nose to avoid an accident. When doing safety calculations you must always round down (away from the safety limit). You rounded towards the safety limit, reducing your margins.


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## Smurfenstein (Nov 16, 2011)

jakkaroo said:


> Ok,this makes sense.The tires i currently have are a 88 so 1235 so well just round up and say 2400 per axle that 4800 for the whole car.Honestly i never carry more than 3 people in the car and the way my car is set up i never drive over 65 so need for heavy braking.
> The load chart helped me alot,makes me understand what load rating does but im still in a very safe limit when i ride solo which is 99%of the time
> 
> sorry for grammar few beers in


The other thing you have to take into account is weight distribution. All four tires might be good for 4800 pounds, but the weight on our cars isn't split 50:50, its 60.5/39.5 which means that you're looking at almost 1900 on the front axle. Now thats a cushion of 500 lbs curb weight, which doesn't account for your weight thats closer to the front of the car as well and puts at least 100 more on the front axles[to be very conservative/nice]. Now your down to 400 pounds, and we haven't even gotten into weight shift under degree of braking, and you can now see that if you go with an even lower load rating tire, you're almost asking for it to pop.


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## Merc6 (Jun 8, 2013)

What kind of tire are you trying to fit or is this a wheel and tire set you found for stupid cheap? I wouldn't risk it as well because you can't predict life events. If you can't say it's for another car, just buy them w/o a car attached like when we buy the NGK plugs that aren't listed for our cars.


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