New to the board and need some advice. I have am 89 GL10 wagon (bought new, only has 124,000 on it, just getting broken in).

 

Anyway I had some tires put on about 15K ago. When I was having some work done on the rear axle, the mechanic noted that I was getting belt seperation on one of the tires. The warranty covered replacement but the tire is no longer made.

 

Right now I have 185/70R13 on it. I can get a replacement all season in this size or the tire shop said the could replace the current tires with a set of 175/70R13. Now the manual says the 185 is rated for a "full" load while the 175 is rated for a "light" load. What's the difference between a full and light load?? Is having 3 passengers a full load while 1 is a light load??

 

Is it better to have the 185 size or would the 175 work? My son drives the car commuting to school and work.

 

Thanks a bunch

 

Joe

New to the board and need some advice. I have am 89 GL10 wagon (bought new, only has 124,000 on it, just getting broken in).

 

Anyway I had some tires put on about 15K ago. When I was having some work done on the rear axle, the mechanic noted that I was getting belt seperation on one of the tires. The warranty covered replacement but the tire is no longer made.

 

Right now I have 185/70R13 on it. I can get a replacement all season in this size or the tire shop said the could replace the current tires with a set of 175/70R13. Now the manual says the 185 is rated for a "full" load while the 175 is rated for a "light" load. What's the difference between a full and light load?? Is having 3 passengers a full load while 1 is a light load??

 

Is it better to have the 185 size or would the 175 work? My son drives the car commuting to school and work.

 

Thanks a bunch

 

Joe

 

not sure... the 185 size is slightly larger than the 170(by about 10mm). check the load capacities of the tires and compare with gvw and the weight of your cargo/passangers.

 

good lucky, maybe someone who actually knows will come around(my tires are rated to carry I think at least 3x-4x more than the stock tires...)

i dont think it will matter. but make sure that all the tires are the same size. if you buy one 170 then buy 4.

 

-=Suberdave=-

.... or have them replace the one tire with one that isthe same size as the rest of them

I have a GL-10 also and have had 175 size tires on it. I to drive from school to work and have had no problem. Mine would still have been fine to but I found 185 size tires with better tread.

175 won't cause any issues. that light-load/heavy-load stuff is way overkill. you won't notice a difference assuming the 175's are decent tires, speed ratings, and all.

Correct me if I`m wrong, but the difference in load rating depended on how many ply`s, not necessarily tire size when talking about 175`s and 185`s. I believe if you look, you`ll find that the ratings only less than 200# difference between the 2 sizes. Not enough to make a difference IMHO.