Help requested - understanding Japanese tire markings

Sep 04, 2005 2 Replies
J

Yesterday I purchased a used Japanese import - a 2001 Toyota Prius hybrid car.



It has Yokohama tires, steel belted radials 165/65 R15 81S



OK so far; that gives me the profile and size information, and the load carrying and speed rating.



I would like to know the safe maximum cold inflation pressure, but the information is not there in an obvious form.



Other information on the side wall is:-



ES 300 C58701 and FC64



The recommended inflation pressure from the label inside the driver's door appears to be 230 kPa (I don't understand the Japanese symbols, but that is alongside the tire size numbers) - which corresponds to about 35 psi.



However, I have been reading comments from USA owners of the Toyota Prius suggesting that the Toyota recommendations for inflation pressure are too low, and much better performance is obtained with pressure of 40 psi. I guess it is not safe for me to go along with this though, as the tires fitted on cars sold in the USA will not have Japanese manufactured tires on them, and the safe pressure ratings may be different to the tires I have (I'm in New Zealand).



I have tried searching via Google for the information without success, and wonder if anyone participating in this group might be able to offer advice on how to find the answer?



TIA,



Cheers, John S


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T

What MODEL of Yokohama, the Avid, the Aegis, etc.?

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Once you find the model you can pull the specs for the tire which has max cold inflation pressure.

For example, if your tire is the AVID Touring, the specs here:

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show a max inflation pressure of 35psi.

Yokohama also shows that this size tire isn't the right size for your Prius, you better check your owners manual for tires sizes.

Ted

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J

Hi Ted,

Thanks for the tips. Unfortunately couldn't identify the tires on my car at this site.

The only "model" kind of reference on the sidewall is the word "Ecos", and this isn't mentioned on the yokohamatire.com site.

I guess I have tires made for the Japanese market and not used in the USA.

The size fitted is correct, according to the plate fitted to the driver door frame.

Guess I should assume max 35 psi and play safe, rather than inflate to 40 psi.

Again thanks for trying to help.

cheers,

John S

PS - thinking about your suggestion I searched via google for yokohama and ecos, and found a web page for yokohama in Japanese.

Using google's translation utility I was able to get a rough idea about this tire, but couldn't find anything which looked like the max inflation pressure.

Apparently the Ecos tire is a special low rolling resistance variety with abnormally good grip in the wet, and that's about all I could glean from the limited amount of english text amid the Japanese symbols.

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