Weights. Am I missing something?

specta wrote:


I couldn't find any F rated 17" tires and neither could my dealer.

I was contemplating looking for some 18" OE take-offs but ended up with a set of 265/70R17 Michelin Agilis CrossClimate tires.

Still E rated but I'm happy with them.

I'm not over weight by much and not worried about it at all.

There hasn't been higher weight rated 17" truck tires produced for years. Why? Have no idea. I usta have some 295/70/17s that were rated for 3950lbs iirc.
No more.
To tire load ratings, my personal experience is tires are rated very conservatively with a huge factor of safety. Reason? Mfgs liability. It's a critical component that customers will abuse greatly and the liability of many blowout lawsuits is worth making tires much stronger than their rated weights.
Lots of talk about it and a couple examples here of blowouts. Most all of is have had tires blowout (except Jaycocreek but now he's jynxed himself by talking about it, lol).
But few if any of us do a forensic analysis on the cause. Simple overloading is not likely the root cause though. Old tires, tread or belt separation, road hazards, unseen previous tire damage, air pressure..many causes.
I'm in the somewhat unique situation of having been assigned many 1/2 ton trucks to do heavy civil construction work (not that unique, but most private owners or smarter people would use a heavier truck for some of these tasks). I've taken to, out of convienence/cost/necessity, airing up P or XL rated tires over their max psi rating to hold up a load or trailer weight. I've actually tried (sort of) to blow up P rated tires, running them 60 psi hauling heavy trailers for months at a time. Result? No issues.
Not saying it's right, but the end result gives me great comfort that certainly at or a little over the weight rating and within specified max pressure is not taxing the tires very bad.