I’m looking at getting snow tyres for my transporter.

I understand the speed restrictions and weigh limits etc but is it a legal requirement to fit C tyres to the vehicle?

Cheers!

whats a commercial tire then …. and what designation does it have ….

Are they things like van contacts – where the tread is basically designed for going in a straight line on the motorway efficiently….

My Tranny connect has just recently had standard Conti winter contacts fitted. Same price as a similar non winter tyre, and v. pleased with them so far.

Really, really good in wet, cold mornings.

Afaik ‘commercial’ tyres tend to be 8 ply not 6 ply, so heavier duty sidewalls.
As long as the speed and load ratings on the tyre you are fitting are correct they are certainly legal and I’d expect they will be fine.
They may not stand up to being used at the upper end of the load limit quite so well but you shouldn’t die in flames due to them!

Plies – “E”
This letter indicates the load carrying capacity of the tire in terms of its construction. A “C” indicates the tire has a 6-ply load carrying capacity. The tire is not actually built with 6 plies, but contains one or two plies of equivalent strength. A “D” is an 8-ply rating, and an “E” is a 10-ply rating. If there is no letter, the tire has a standard 4-ply rating.

Commercial just means it has a C in the code: 215/60 R 17 C 109

Mattbee – you’ve answered my question. As long as speed/load rating is OK I’m fine. I just wondered if commercial vehicles needed to have tyres with a C designation.

Thanks all!

whats a commercial tire then

Heavier load rating, steel banding, I think. Caravans need them too.

and whats the difference between a C and an appropriately weight rated tire….

i run 86 XLs as designated by my owners manual – on my commercial vehicle….

Dunno.. maybe insurance requirements…?

As mentioned above, I’d be checking your plies (the structural construction and therfore strength of the tyre). See what is came fitted with and make sure you replace with the same. Lower plies will mean lower load capacity.

You don’t need commercial tyres, just the correct load -rating.

There’s loads of information about what load-rating you need on the T5 forum:
http://www.vwt4forum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=109832

I used Tyreleader and bought commercial winters taking into account the weight and speed limits. The tyres are marked C. I hadn’t checked that bit though 😳
Mines a vivaro used for lifestyle rather than work

C rated tyres are for light van appliacations and typicaslly have 6 or 8 plys as opposed to the standard 4 ply car tyre.

XL tyres are still more heavily reinforced than standard tyres and will be used on some commercial vehicles.

My Transit handbook specifies C rated tyres.

As far as the law is concerned for Class 4 vehcles there is no MOT fail for having the wrong tyres fitted (hence the tiny tyres stretched onto huge rims that customisers have), but it will be recorded on the documentation and the tester must inform the driver that the wrong tyres are fitted.

Anecdotally, from some threads on the Transit forum, folk who use appropirately load rated tyres with no C rating suffer a lot of premature trye failures.

You can get C rated Continental 4 seasons or winters for my Transit from Mytyres for less than £70 each which I reckon is pretty cheap.

Mines a vivaro used for lifestyle rather than work

this part is irrelevant.

just like i cant fit normal 82s on my van because i only carry a couple of bikes and a bit of camping gear.

the tires fitted are to be capible of carrying the plated GVW.

Insurance company might be interested if you’ve deviated from the spec.

doesnt mention in the handbook or on the door and didnt come with Commerical tires in my case though….

agilis 86 XL are what it came with and are the suggested model.

i fitted equivalent uniroyal XLs as they were better in the cold and wet.

That’s kind of what I meant. The tyres are for the vehicle, not for what I’m using it for

Bit of a google and it seems that maximum PSI also figures into this.

According to the site I saw XL and reinforced tyres have maximum inflation of 42psi whilst C rated (designating van tyres) can go higher – up to 83psi for 120 load rated tyres.

My Transit van has front and rear pressures of 53psi and 60psi respectively so could not achieve the required psi on an XL or RF tyre. it needs 102/104 rated C tyres to alow this psi.

Max load rating seems to be 100 for XL and RF tyres so would be fine on a 2.4 ton van but not on a 2.8 ton like mine.

ah ok that makes sense dangerous beans .

thats why i can have XLs then.

Edumacation for the day.

Maybe that’s it – caravans sometimes need 50psi or more. You can have up to about 1500kg on a single axle, so that’s quite a bit of weight for small tyres.

It’s just like bike standards – they go out of their way to make understanding it all as simple as possible.

😀