Tires: inflation pressure vs load tables for Goodyear Wrangler MT/R LT 245/75 R16 load range E tires, goodyear wrangler mt, tire placard

Question
I am looking for inflation table for the subject tire.  I have been unable to find on Goodyear website, and web search has led me here.  Can you help me?

Chuck

Answer
Chuck,

Here's a link to Goodyear's load table for truck tires.  The particular load table you are looking for is on page 7:

http://www.goodyear.com/truck/pdf/edb_loads.pdf

CAUTION:  Load tables are set up for vehicle design engineers and the load indicated for the size / inflation pressure combination is a MAXIMUM - not a recommendation.  The maximum is set for a set of ideal conditions, which are very rarely encountered in service.  As a result, vehicle design engineers know to use some value less than that.  The amount less depends on the intended use of the vehicle - and how they arrive at that amount is based on considerable experience.

One of those experiences was the Ford / Firestone situation a few years back.  That taught everyone involved in tire selection - as well as tire performance - to increase the load carrying capacity for a given application, especially for SUV's.

The net result is what appears on a vehicle's tire placard.  On the surface, this placard appears to tell only the original tire size and the proper pressure for that size.  But the derivation of that pressure gets involved with the load table and the experiences of tires in that application.  The net effect is that the load carrying capacity of a tire as indicated by the tire / inflation pressure combination is significantly smaller than what a simple reading of either the placard or the load table would indicate.

Because of the complexity of this, my standard recommendation is to follow the vehicle manufacturer's recommendation as indicated on the tire placard.  If you are using a different tire size than what is listed on the vehicle placard, then match the load carrying capacity as indicated by the size / inflation pressure combination.  Since this involves the load tables - which you have found out are hard to find - I will do the calculation for anyone who asks.