Tires: extra load tires, white sidewall tires, cadillac funeral

Question
Greetings gentlemen,

I am a midwestern funeral home owner that is trying to find a correct spec tire for my 99' Cadillac funeral coach. Like many funeral coaches, the tires typically were more from sitting as the car has traveled only 60k miles in 10 years.  The tire on the car #OEM# is the Michelin LX4 extra load in the 235/60/16 size.  This tire has a thin #1/4 inch# whitewall.  The problem I am encountering is that Michelin has discontinued this extra load tire and I can not fine a white wall replacement.  In speaking with the chassis builder #Eagle Coach Co.# in Ohio, the say my car weighs approx 5,100 lbs empty and using the standard load version of the same tire should be "OK".  What would you advise for my situation and I would really like to keep whitewalls!?!

Thank you for input.

Bruce

Answer
Bruce,

This is a "rock and a hard place" kind of question - there just aren't good answers here.
The biggest problem is trying to determine what white sidewall tires are available.  My searches haven't yielded anything that would work.

And on top of that, I haven't found any other tire size that is the equivalent of the 235/60R16 XL (LI=106).  I would suggest if you choose to go with a tire lower than 102 Load Index, that you replace the tires more often - say every 6 years.