I was just about to start a thread like this. The 8 year old Nokians on my 97 Civic have the grip of hockey pucks. 185/65/14s.
Does anyone have any insight regarding the relationship between speed rating, vehicle weight, tire wear, and dry/wet/snow handling characteristics?
Something between a Q-rated softie and an H-rated highway snow?
My understanding is this:
Speed rating for a tire is the tires top speed before you may experience warping, deformation and or my personal fav, tire failre. Think firestone and ford exploders.
Vehicle weight will be the tires load rating. take your curb weight plus max weight capacity (found on your inside door panel) add that up, divide by four and you get what should be the max load for each tire on your vehicle.
Tire wear is the durometer. Something like 200 300 and 400 is the standard, with the lower (I think) being softer.
Characteristics come down to tread design, intended application, durometer and the vechile itself.
For all your tire needs, read up @ tirerack.com. Such a useful tool for these threads. And for tires in your size, you may not save a lot on shipping them in from the states but you will have plenty of options from both sides of the border.
protect tom mcdonald at all costs