Tires, is there a right answer?
 

I've read so many pages of info related to tires, I just can't read anymore. :(
Analysis paralysis :confused:
The problem shouldn't be this difficult.
I have a 1996 S10 - 4.3 v6 with an automatic, and 250k miles on the clock and it need tires. 22 to 23mpg is what I've been getting very consistently. Mostly interstate driving. No need for off road or snow tires.
I want something that will not reduce mpg and also will last for a few years. (15k miles per yr) After all the reading, am I wrong to think that LT tires should do better than a P rated tire? If that is correct, should they do enough better to pay for the difference, since LT tires cost more?
And what about LRR tires?
205/75-15 is what is recommended. It wouldn't bother me to run a slightly different size, if the availability / price is better in another size.
Thoughts or suggestions appreciated.

On a truck you will find that your tires need to handle the loads you tow around

If your like me and don’t care about that you can put LRR car tires on the front and LT on the rear, air em up to sidewall max and live with faster wear.

Most folks want their tires to last though

Thanks for the reminder. I don't haul anything with any real weight. Mostly just my paraglider, paramotor, and a few gallons of fuel (under 100lbs). I don't know what the fiberglass topper weighs, 100lbs? so 200lbs total + or -.
If I put p rated on the front and LT in the back, then I can't rotate the tires.

I didnt think LT tires help mileage over a P tire, I thought the extra plies were actually a mileage penalty. If you’re loading your truck and the back end squirms around at all, then I’d go for a LT tire, otherwise I’d run a P tire.
So assuming largely commuter type service, from tire racks offerings, I’d probably stick a stock size hankook kinergy st on it.

If they are the same size you can rotate but you need to take care of when and how long, on my 2wd trucks not being able to rotate wasn’t a big deal but YMMV

NON LT tires need to be inflated fully above the door placard on a truck or they tend to blow sidewalls as an FYI

Even when they are rated for your loads, sucks but over 30 years of playing that game it just seems to work that way.

If you want buy a set of LRR tires off the discount rack at Walland and test them all around
If your truck is light enough they might still provide good service the worst that will happen is a prematurely blown tire

Good Luck

If you've read a lot about tires and fuel economy, then you shouldn't need to ask the question. But allow me to repeat myself.

There is a technology triangle involving treadwear, traction (especially wet traction) and rolling resistance (fuel economy). In order to get better results in one category, one or both of the others has to be sacrificed. Typically, treadwear is very important to the consumer, so most tires are designed in that direction - usually at the expense of RR.

But tires supplied to the OEM (vehicle manufacturers) are designed at the request of the OEM to have good RR, and treadwear and traction are compromised in the process.

Further, LRR is a relative term. It means better RR compared to other tires with similar treadwear and traction properties. All OE tire will be LRR - and actually have low RR. But most tires labeled LRR don't actually have low RR values - they only have better RR by comparison.

LT tires? As a general rule, LT tires are worse for RR. They are designed beefier in order to carry higher loads than P type tires and RR suffers as a result.

In this case, you are dealing with an older vehicle and the tire size has fallen out of favor. You just won't find many options. I did Tire Rack and only found 4 all season tires available.

Changing the tire size to P215/70R15 and there are more options (27) and some of them are LRR. (Please note: Tire Rack uses the term "Eco Focus" instead of LRR because of the confusion between tires that have low RR values and those that are just better by comparison.)

I'm afraid your options are limited.

Your S10 certainly doesn't need LT tires, most full size half tons don't even call for LT tires, at least the years I'm familiar with. My 94 F150 4wd stock tire size is a P235/75/15XL. The XL is a slightly higher load rating than without the XL designation, but it's still a P tire, only 6-plies.

I would never put an LT tires on something as small as an S10, because if you're looking to carry that kind of weight you need something bigger, or you will be way overloaded.

Don't put p metric tires on a truck.
If you really don't want to pay for LT or flotation size tires get a car.
The weaker size walls and lower inflation pressure could likely result in worse fuel milage even if you use a p metric LRR tire compared to using a low rolling resistance LT highway tire.

When I worked at the local Ford garage, all the new half tons came in with P designation tires. Every old Half-ton I've seen (including mine) also designates a P tire. I've only every seen LT tires specified on 3/4 ton plus, which is why half tons have tire pressure specs of 35-41 PSI, and 3/4 and tonners specify 65-80, depending on tire location.

My '94 F150 has had several sets of P- tires over the years. Once upon a time I tried a set of LT tires and boy was I glad you could return them if you didn't like them! Rough riding and noisy. In 28 years of work and towing I haven't ruined a P- tire due to loading. I agree that a little compact truck almost always will fare better with P- tires.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I had a Saab 9-5 turbo that did 33.5mpg over the last 19k miles. It also had a big tank. I once went 700 miles on a tank of gas. So this S10 feels like a gas hog - even though it really isn't too bad.
I didn't believe that I needed LT tires because of the weight. I was looking at those thinking the higher air pressure would = better mpg. I wasn't considering that the extra plies would add more drag, but I should have.
Yes I read that the LRR was a comparison to similar tires.
I'll probably get a more common size than the 205 it calls for.
Thanks again everyone.

In order for the Post Office's smallish mail trucks to have a 1000 pound cargo ability, they need LT tires. We tried to order snow tires for them and the only available tires in the size were P series and thus would be under the weight capacity by 30 pounds per tire. So no snow (pun intended) tires on the 300,000 mail trucks in the US. Those smaller tires, in this case a 14" wheel, really aren't that high of a rating when going to LT, and the mail truck is basically a Chevy S10 with an aluminum body on it. Oh and the dedicated snow tires cost 1/3 the price of the LT tires we buy (Goodyear Wrangler almost $300 each because why wouldn't a government agency use a tire size/spec nobody else on the planet is using?) Even better we get to run chains in the winter that cost $75 a set and last 2 weeks tops tearing up the roads.

On a side note, I don't think the LT tires are necessarily that much worse RR, but by far most LT tires also add aggressive tread designs which will be bad for RR.

I can't speak for truck tires specifically but I was impressed with Michelin Defenders last time I had a set. Fuel economy was only marginally worse than the l famous Bridgestone RE92 165 (probably the lowest RR passenger tire), they lasted twice as long, and weighed less. I felt the traction was "fine" in the 70,000 or so miles I had them, though undoubtedly they were using a very hard rubber compound.

This is the government we're talking about, I doubt that they need LT tires. Even the itty bitty 12" tires on my Geo are rated for 908 lbs a piece, and going up to a reasonably large 14" tire I'm sure you would be in the 1,600 pound range on a passenger tire, and those mail trucks can't be all that heavy.

A quick google search for P205/70R15 shows that they are usually rated for between 1,600 and 1,800 pounds, so about 3,200-3,600 on the rear axle, and you'll not convince me that the rear half on that S10 weighs more than 2,200 pounds. For that matter, My 4X4 F150 doesn't have that much dry weight on the rear axle.

OP, unless you are crazily overloading that S10, you will be just fine with a P designated tire.

I can only provide my own tire decision matrix which is: What is the highest level of wet traction can I get for the best price.

Why wet traction? Well dry traction is a given for everyone except Mr. Street-racer but we all butt-clench when we break traction on wet pavement. Wet traction can also be a predictor of snow traction.

Agree about wet traction.

I've read that in tread design, though, that wet traction and snow traction are often *inversely* related in tread design.

I had never heard that, note taken.

https://www.tirebusiness.com/article...ing-tire-specs

Funny to think they were only getting 3500 miles from a tire

What the heck!

They must be doing daily burnouts. Something smells fishy about that one

Highest quality usually means highest price. MICHELIN or BRIDGESTONE are my pair of choices. Closed-shoulder, Highway Rib is highest mpg.

The truck is also a problem if FF/RR vehicle weight remains skewed to FF.

New shocks (Bilstein 4600) also.

If cab & bed frame bushings are original, change them. Same for spring bushings front & rear.

A rear anti-roll bar PLUS a larger front anti-roll bar will help with handling & winds. (Must do together). Be sure to have poly bar bushings. ADDCO or HELWIG.

After this, it’s the operator. Tires & brakes should always last 70k or better given quality components.

(That many years and miles it could use a little rejuvenation. I see that BLUE BEACON now has a Nashville location. Have them give itvthe classic wash, but with Acid & Alkaline solution on the underside. Major attention to the wheelwells and everything they can hit underneath. You can’t replicate results with pressure washer (chemistry).

This is better than using Dawn to strip old wax from paint. Glass will be perfect for a high quality rain repel product. Etc.

Once home paint wheelwells with semi-gloss black. And any other undercoating underneath. Go farther by removing wheels — mask brake lines, etc — and use gloss to paint axle and A-Arms.

This is a great start to a serious detail. You or a pro hired. Then tires/shocks/bushings and antiroll will seem a better choice.

Paint on a truck is easy. It’s the underside that throws that off).



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Allow me to both explain and give a similar story.

In the early 1990's. (The news article is dated 1995!), I participated in a conference call between Ford and Florida Bell (or whatever the phone company was in southern Florida). I was the technical rep for one of Ford's tire suppliers.

They were purchasing new E-150 vans for their service trucks and in southern Florida they were getting less that 5,000 miles on the tires coming from the vehicle assembly plant. This was a drop from the 7,500 miles previously.

They explained that they knew that their trucks were being used for installing phone lines for new housing so that meant new concrete pavement and many turns relative to the amount of miles they drove - and that the new pavement had sharp shells in the limestone aggregate. Those 2 things were causing wear issues.

It wasn't that the wear was fast, but that the wear was faster than before. Their expectations weren't high to begin with.

They were told that they could specify the tire they wanted since they were buying so many vehicles (They didn't know that!).

Interestingly, the referenced news article specified moving from 6 ply to 8 ply tires - which not only indicates that the reporter was talking to someone low on the totem pole as the proper terminology is Load Range C to Load Range D - but also missed that fact that they compared different brands. It's quite possible the Load Range C tires were OE and had reduced treadwear properties due to rolling resistance requirements - the same problem Florida Bell was having!

Oh, and the issue of fuel economy between LT tires vs P type tires:

Because LT tires carry so much more load than a same sized P type tires, the tread compound has to have increased compression set resistance.

Ya' see, rubber is a visco-elastic material - which means that under stress it can flow - and since LT tires are subjected to higher stresses …….. That means that the rubber compounds used in LT tires have worse hysteresis - worse RR - and while the hysteretic properties can be improved by sacrificing wear and/or traction, they can't be better for LT tires without sacrificing compression set properties.

5,000 miles!!:eek: What in the blazes were they using, bicycle tires? The cheasiest junk chinesium garbage tires easily last 30,000 miles if they are even semi kind of cared for. What were these guys doing to wear them out that fast?

Most tire wear occurs in cornering. Drive in a straight line and there is hardly any wear. For example, local delivery trucks don't get as good of wear mileage as city to city trucks. What both the Post Office and Florida Bell were doing was on the extreme end of making a lot of turns in relatively short trips.

I've seen the same tires get as little as 10K, and over 100K on the same type of vehicle and the difference was what service the vehicles were used for - local delivery vs city to city.

intriguing. I guess intuitively it makes sense that doing a lot of cornering in town would wear them out faster, but I never would have guessed it would be that much faster.

Shortly after the conference call mentioned above, I calculated the turns-per-mile for my commute to work - about 1 turn per mile.

I just calculated what the mail carrier would do around the subdivision: 8 turns per mile.

We're talking orders of magnitude differences.

So, you may ask, how do tire manufacturers deal with this phenomenon relative to their mileage warranties.

It's a matter of the risk. How much is it going to cost to warrant the mileage on a tire at one level, compared to another? Just an FYI, the risk (cost) is generally so low it hardly matters. It's a wonder that tire mileage warranties aren't all outrageous.

That makes sense looking at turns per mile.

As far as tire mileage warranties, how does that actually work? I've never had to try to use one, but I've heard of guys who buy a 60,000 mile tire and drive nothing but scoria gravel and burn them up after 20k getting denied warranty because of it. Is it one of those warranties that actually means nothing at all?

Well, there are some stipulations concerning the mileage warranty that tend to trip people up. The most common is uneven and irregular wear. That kind of wear is caused by the vehicle - and even though the alignment might be "in spec", the spec is not designed to give good tire wear.

The net effect is that only a small percentager of the tires sold will be in a position to meet ALL the stipulations.

That's kind of what I was thinking. Seeing the camber they put on the back of (stock) cars these days blows my mind.

3500 miles? Sportbikes often get 4k to 6k on tires!
Around my neck of the woods, I suspect that mail delivery is hard on the tires. They drive off the edge of the pavement, and then back up onto it at each mailbox.
As I said, my thinking was wrong about the LT tires. I'll be buying passenger rated.
Again, Thanks everyone.

Just to follow up on 3500 mile LLV tires, everything is used much harder on these things. It is possible one truck will do 800 start and stops and steering maneuvers in just 15 miles of travel a day. Another may start and stop the motor 200 times only traveling 10 miles. My particular truck I figured is started 75 times, and does about 400 braking, maneuvering into a box, and accelerating away in 18 miles total a day. The tires are rotated every 6 months but the newest trucks are 1994s (mine is) and alignment has become something of an eyeball thing at this point. I help manage the fleet of 50 of them and haven't seen an alignment authorized on any of them in over 2 years, even after replacing every part imaginable in the front end. I personally get 1.5 years on my tires before they go to 4/32 which is considered unsafe for winter which is about 7,000 miles so better than average but I do have the LT Goodyear Wanglers which might be the 8 ply the article spoke of back in 1995.
I have read each LLV costs about $4000/yr each in maintenance to keep them running at this point. I know we spend $2000 each in contractor labor alone not counting any parts or labor done by postal employees.

I have to think a “Volt style” LLV would reduce maintenance even if never charged due to reduced maintenance, brake and drivetrain wear.

Unfortunately that probably isn’t the direction they will go.


Hersguy do you belong to this forum?

https://m.facebook.com/groups/152981...?ref=bookmarks

I keep an eye out since I’m affected but don’t see much development lately and have heard of potential of multiple contract types.

Ah well

No, not a member of any Facebook groups but local friends and family. The next gen postal winner has been pushed back to fall now at the soonest, which is at least a year behind. That is just to announce the winning design, then that company needs to go into production which could involve building new plants and hiring workers. I bet we don't see any real deliveries made for 3 years, and it will take 5 more from that point to replace the entire fleet. Basically I may be retired before we get them up here. There are a few electric versions. I personally think Mahindra will win, if not the Ford. Mahindra wants the US market intro, and what better way than one of their trucks at every home, every day. And Ford has the simplest design ready to put into production. I think the others were a bit gimmicky, more an exercise in "what if?" I suppose the 80's LLV was a bit radical for it's day as well, but all that was radical had if anything proved to be the worst aspects of them LOL! Keep it simple IMO is the key to success.

And driver motivation. IMO, the real culprit given spec is otherwise to standard.

Was reading the blurb for the MICHELIN AGILIS yesterday. Sized for my Load Index 121 needs. “Commercial”. “Loaded vehicle” “Euro” all mentioned more than once in a retailer ad.

The expectation that it won’t be best for an empty 1T pickup. $319.00 per tire.

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