Tire Ply 14 or 16?

Are tires sold by 'ply' anymore?

2oldman wrote:
Are tires sold by 'ply' anymore?

No, and even the letter grades are outdated.

Best to go by the payload rating.

valhalla360 wrote:

2oldman wrote:
Are tires sold by 'ply' anymore?

No, and even the letter grades are outdated.

Best to go by the payload rating.

2 true statements, and I have a silly question;
You state the tires you are running now are aged out. Are you expecting to add a lot of weight or miles in the near future? If not, your next set will age out too. So spending extra bucks for the heavier tire means not only does your coach take the stress spinning/stopping and bouncing the heavier tires, you throw away more money when they age out.

Have you had a problem with the 14 ply tires?

haste maker wrote:
I have a 32 foot Class A that has a gross weight of 18,000 lbs I need to replace the tires due to age, it has 14 ply tires on it now...I am thinking about going to a 16 ply tire with the new tires.

Has anyone done this, & if so what were your reason for doing this, also did it change the ride to a harder ride?

Can of worms, . . . . soon to open.

IMO, stick with the same payload rating. Every major tire manufacturer has their own proprietary blend of rubber compounds (tread and sidewall compounds can be different), tread patterns, and carcass construction which THEY feel is best for your application. That may differ from your opinion.

https://www.readingtruck.com/understanding-truck-tires-load-ratings-and-sizes/

Unless you have specific reasons for changing tire manufacturers, IMO you should stick with the same one. Remember, you are spending a lot of money, and, if you son't like your new tires, you are stuck with them for a while. Tire manufacturers also change tire compounds, construction, load ratings often so even if your new tires are the same as the ones they replaced, they may not actually be "the same."

Chum lee

haste maker wrote:
I have a 32 foot Class A that has a gross weight of 18,000 lbs I need to replace the tires due to age, it has 14 ply tires on it now...I am thinking about going to a 16 ply tire with the new tires.

Has anyone done this, & if so what were your reason for doing this, also did it change the ride to a harder ride?

For practical purposes, the change from a 14 PR to a 16 PR AT THE SAME INFLATION PRESSURE doesn't change things enough to sense anything different - like ride quality. What would be different is if you change the make/model.

What the increased PR does is allow you to increase the inflation pressure to be able to get a higher load carrying capacity.

You could inflate the lower PR tire to a higher pressure, too, but the structure of the tire isn't changing, so the tire gets hardly any increase in load carrying capacity.

Unless you have to run the max sidewall psi for your weight (you have weighed your rig) there’s no reason to go with a tire that has a higher sidewall psi… only difference in the “plies”.

I went from 14 to 16 on my steer tires when i changed from the 8r19.5 to the metric 245/70/19.5. But it was mostly because the tire model i wanted happened to be 16 ply and a higher weight rating.

I think the bigger question is if a 16 ply tire is stronger than a 14 ply tire at equal tire pressure, and that specific pressure being well below both of their pressure limits. This sort of discussion can go on forever.

I digress. Purchase whatever tire has the correct payload. Make sure to weigh your rig if you never have. Going by GVW is good when selecting a tire, but odds are you wont need the max tire pressure.

What are the concerns to be resolved by going up in load range? Are the existing tires run at sidewall max pressure?

time2roll wrote:
What are the concerns to be resolved by going up in load range? Are the existing tires run at sidewall max pressure?

The OP has not given any more info. If the current tires are running at Max pressure, would going to a higher load range reduce needed pressure? (know I could look at inflation chart)

I know from experience putting HD tires on just 1 axle degraded the drive comfort, even after deflated to the same pressure of the other tires. Now I changed from tires rated for about 7,400 to a pair rated at 9,000 for 1 trip.

I still can't stand under why, when tires last until age out, you would want to change to higher rated/price tire