Tires: V rated tires, legal jeopardy, risk of failure

Question
I have my tire in for repair and the technician said i need to replace my tires soon because of dry rot. Secondly these tires are V rated and need to be replace by V rated tires.  I own a Mazda Millennia and was wondering if i truly need to replace them wit V rated tires.

thank you

Kimberly

Answer
Kimberly,

The general rule is to replace tires with the same speed rating.  This is so the vehicle handling doesn't change much.

So tire shops don't like to put themselves in legal jeopardy by doing otherwise.

Plus there is a safety issue - a lower speed rating is less capable and therefore there is a higher risk of failure.

But this level of speed rating in the US is a little excessive.  But I wouldn't use lower than an H rating.  H rated tires have cap plies and this technological improvement is an enormous help in reducing the failure rate - well beyond the speed rating effect.

S and T rated tires typically don't have cap plies and I don't recommend anyone use those.