The number just before the speed letter on your sidewall is the load index, and it is the one specification nobody discusses when a set is being chosen on price alone. It is not a suggestion. It converts to a weight that a single tyre is certified to carry, and the car maker picked it around the vehicle fully loaded rather than around the car with one person in it. A 91 is not slightly less than a 94. It is a real number of kilograms less, at every corner.
It matters more here than a specification sheet suggests, because plenty of cars around Southall spend their lives full. Four or five people aboard, a boot loaded up after a run along The Broadway, and then a stretch of the A4020 with all of it on board. That is exactly the duty a load index is written for, and exactly when an under rated tyre runs hotter than it was built to. When we price a set we match the index the car was approved with, we say plainly if a cheaper option drops below it, and you decide with the number in front of you rather than finding out afterwards.
A tyre bought in a hurry is usually the wrong tyre. Once it is settled, the van comes to you in UB1 with the tyre already on board, fits it where the car stands and balances every wheel it touches. Ring at 3am from The Broadway and someone answers; the Western Road area at noon is no different. A 4am the Western Road area call and a noon Norwood Green call reach the same fitter. The UB1 postcode and a street in Norwood Green: that is enough.
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Parking anywhere near The Broadway is a contest, and the side streets around Norwood Green sit packed nose to tail for most of the day, which makes a trip to a garage cost far more than the work itself. Coming to the car removes that entirely. It also means we can look at the placard in the door shut with you standing beside it, which is where most of the confusion about what a car actually needs gets settled in about ten seconds.
A family car in Dormers Wells had been fitted with tyres two load steps below its placard. Nothing had failed yet, but the car was carrying five people most days. The correct rating went back on both axles.
A driver near Southall Green wanted the same tyre as a neighbour's car. The sizes matched and the load indexes did not, because the two cars weigh very different amounts. We fitted to their own plate instead.
A trader off Western Road could not leave during the day, so the set went on where the car was already parked and the old tyres went away with us.
On the placard in the driver's door shut, next to the recommended pressures. It lists the size along with the minimum load index and speed rating the car was approved with. That plate is the reference, not whatever happens to be fitted now.
Not something we will do. The rating forms part of the vehicle's approval, and a tyre below it is carrying more than it was certified for every time the car is loaded. Above the plate is fine. Below it is not.
It can, a little, because a higher rated casing is usually stiffer. On most cars the difference is small and worth having. If the jump is big enough to change how the car feels over a poor surface, we will tell you before it goes on.
Yes, and a good share of Southall work is done that way. Give us the address and where the car will be standing, and we bring the tyres, fit them, balance the wheels and take the old ones away.
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