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How to Read a Door Placard
Your vehicle's door placard tells you many things you need to know about your tires. Door placards are often found on the driver side doorjam, but can also be found in the fuel fill door, glove box, center console door or engine compartment. It can also be found on the sidewall of your tires.
Your door placard displays a series of numbers that identify things like your vehicle's service description, the original tire size, and the cold tire pressure. Once you find the door placard on your vehicle, use the diagram provided and the details below to find the meaning of each number.
Service Description
This section tells you how much weight the tires can carry, based on the combined weight of the occupants and cargo load.
Tire Size
- Tire class - the first letter listed identifies the correct use of the tire. For example, a "P" designation means that it is a passenger car tire. An "LT" designation is for a light truck. No letter before the width indicates that it is a European metric tire.
- Section width - the numbers immediately following the tire class is the section width. This can be defined as the width of the tire measured in mm from sidewall to sidewall. This tire width is 195 mm.
- Aspect ratio - this number displays after the "/" and identifies the ratio of the height of the tire's cross-section to its width. Here, 70 means that the height is equal to 70% of the tire's width.
- Tire construction - this letter listed after the aspect ratio identifies how the layers of the tire were put together. "R" stands for radial construction, meaning that the layers run radially across the tire. "B" stands for bias construction, meaning that the layers run diagonally across the tire.
- Wheel diameter - the final number listed here is the wheel diamter, also called the rim diameter. This measurement is the width of the wheel from one end to the other. The diameter of this wheel is 14 in.
When shopping for new tires, use this information match the numbers from your door placard to one of the size options listed. Click here to shop for tires by tire size.
Cold Tire Pressure
This section identifies the recommended cold tire PSI for your front and rear tires. Tire inflation pressure should be checked first thing in the morning when the tires are at their coldest—before the vehicle has been driven, before the tires have been in direct sunlight, and before the temperature rises. For more information on checking and maintaining proper tire air pressure, click here.
