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The Best Tires for a Heavy Load on Small Trucks

Choosing the right tire is very important. Improper selection causes the vehicle to lose steering control, resulting in road accidents. Millions of car accidents happen all over the world every day, but if you know the right tire, you can avoid one cause of these tragedies. Knowing the proper tire for your vehicle is simple. Just look at your old tire and note the codes (consists of letters and digits) on its side.

  1. Different Types of Tires

    • Tires differ in terms of speed, weight distribution, and traction (road grip). Summer tires are designed for faster speed performance but run poorly on water, and even more poorly on snow. Winter tires take longer to wear out, yet may be limited in carrying heavy loads. Light truck tires can run efficiently in both snow-covered and wet environments, just like all-season tires, but are designed to run on different terrains and carry heavier loads.

    Tire Ratings

    • Your tire for small trucks should always have the ratings MS, M+S, M/S or M&S. These letters say that it passes the standard traction rating required by the Rubber Manufacturers Association (RMA) when run on rain or snow. Your tire grooves should also have wide spaces in between. These little canal-like structures channel the water out and penetrate through the snow, allowing solid road grip.

    Speed Ratings

    • Tires for small trucks are not very speedy because they carry heavy loads. You can also check the speed ratings on your tire and match accordingly when you replace it. Speed ratings are designated by letters. Small trucks tires should have at least a rating of N (87mph) and at most a rating of H (130mph). Speedy tires wear out sooner, have thinner threads and thus are inappropriate for carrying heavy loads.

    How to Get the Right Tire

    • Always choose a tire that matches the specifications of your old tire. You shall see these specifications on the sidewall of your car, written in codes. These codes may look very confusing, but all you need to do is to read each segment to identify the data they represent. Say, for example, you see P225/50/R16. P tells you that it is for passenger vehicle use, the 225 is the tire width, 50 is the height or aspect ration, R refers to Radial (tire’s inner construction) and 16 is the inner diameter of your tire. In light trucks, the tire may be a D, which is a crisscross construction, instead of an R.

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