I may be wrong but a 103 load rating is a 103 load rating no matter whether it's advertised as a car or a van tyre.

 

103 is good be it car or van tyre.



Believe the difference is van tyres are made of granite so are a firm ride / cheaper / last 30k miles.



Car tyres (although can be rated 103) are soft and nice to drive on BUT only last 10-15k miles.



I went for goodyear F1 asy3 (18"), so far done 6k on them and they are not halfway done yet and are a great tyre. Does hurt having to spend £600 on tyres every 15k though.

 

Number of plies.. C-Rated Van tyres are 8 ply

XL may be 6 ply

Car tyres may be as little as 2 ply

Vans have to have stronger walls to prevent collapse on heavy cornering etc..

I have C-Rated 104/102 tryes on original T4 steel wheels..Can't go wrong with that..

NOT THE AUDI WHEELS ABOVE in the my profile photo, got rid of them ages ago..

Vans need van wheels and tryes.. cars need car wheels and tyres, you wouldn't ever think of putting van tyres on a car, so why put car tyres on a van..

 

I haven't seen 235/55R17 available as a van/commercial tyre but if it does exist it's rating would be about 110...

If you see a T5 on 17s it'll either have 235/55R17 XL car tyres or 215/60R17C (T6 has another size too)

Conti get close...

https://www.continental-tyres.co.uk/car/tyres/contivancontact200

Tyres dont have plies any more. That was all to do with cross ply tyres. Radial tyres have PR or ply rating type equivalents.

The big difference between car and van tyres for a given load rating is the pressure you run them at.

Normal Car tyres start at 2.0 Bar and reach rated load at 2.5 or 2.8Bar if they are XL marked.

Van C marked tyres start at 3.0 bar and carry on reaching higher load up to 5.5Bar (size specific) .

The chart in the door pillar will show the difference in pressure for C vs XL tyres.

 

Sorry but that's just wrong:

My van had Goodyear Cargo Vector 2 225/55 R17C 104/102H 6PR from new. This is a commercial van tyre

 

Oh for petes sake you're not sorry about really are you? My reply isn't miles out and I did say there was a another 17 size on later T6 vans but I've never seen that on a T5. Any google image search for T5 tyre pressures only brings up the ones I quoted so your van must be very rare.

Meanwhile the OP wanted to know about a 235/55R17 C and I cant find one on the web.

The core of my reply was correct though that the tyres operate in different pressure ranges.

 

The core of my reply was correct though that the tyres operate in different pressure ranges.

Non-commercial specific tyres may have a sufficient load rating for the weight but I dread to think how a fully loaded T30 would handle at the lower pressures that non-commercial specific tyres could sustain. (probably like a Morris Marina ?)

 

Still think its as simple as:


van = made of rock but last 40k miles
car = made of rubber but last 12-15k miles


Just get 103XL and all be good I:

 

I prefer the 215/60/17 profile, very quiet and last longer IMO mine are Michelin Agilis which I got a great cash deal on £ 80 each £320

Any of the top brands would do, depends on the deal, it's the profile I'm interested in. I do a lot of miles so I want comfort,noiseless,good handling in the wet, good braking in the wet tyres.

Never buy cheap or second hand tyres. Get your money out T:

 

Never buy second hand tyres.

Agreed - however, like most people I buy five second hand tyres every time I buy a used vehicle LOL !

Still, how many of us would never buy used crockery, cutlery or bedding but stay in hotels & eat out ?

Go figure.

 

I needed 2 new tyres for my T30 T5.1 this week. Phoned a few companies for a premium branded tyres. One place that did commercial vans kept says "so you want a car tyre then". The tyre fitter I went to said they need to have 'C' on the tyre to denote commercial tyre, but he said none of the premium brands do them. My T5 came with the 255/45/R18 103y XL Sportline alloys and non commercial tyres from VW direct as a T5.1 Transporter. So they are obviously not bothered either.

I've had Eagle F1 Asymmetric 3 on the front for a year and just added 2xContinental PremiumContact 6 on the back. The difference is night and day compared to the ditch finders it original came with, so much more grip in both dry and wet. But yes they do wear out significantly quicker.

 

Yes that was the point I was trying to make above about buying premium tyres, the difference is night and day. Sadly that logic is ignored by some of are non members :*