I am sorry but I highly doubt an engineer said that. That goes completely against what a load rating is even for. You do not just increase the tires belt construction to handle increased load, but the entire tire, including its sidewall, and stiffness of the rubber compound. And while its ply count for both might be 3 as you previously stated, they have a ply rating, which is a direct indicator of the tires strength which the C rated is a 6 ply rating, and the E is a 10 ply rating. You cannot have almost double the load capacity in a tire without changing its entire compound. Especially if they are both only 3 ply(layers) as you said. And tires that have a stiffer, more reinforced(stronger) compound naturally resist punctures more than one that is softer. I worked at the Bridgestone tire plant for 5 years and what that engineer supposedly said just doesn't make any sense. I can understand in the case of the Falken, as even if the E rated is more reinforced stiffness, because it has less overall layers it ends up not being helping, but in tires that effectively have the same layer count, the E rated tire should always be stronger.
Ply rating is not always an increase in the amount of actual plies it has. While that used to be the case and while some still follow that, some tires call themselves 6 ply because they have the equivalent strength of a traditional tire with 6 layers.
We're all on the same side.
What are you referencing? How do you know your info is accurate? "It's on the internet so it must be true."
I am not trying to argue, nor am I really changing what I say. When I talk about the tires compound or construction and when I say the sidewall is being reinforced, I am still talking about the same thing. While some manufacturers might still increase the overall ply count, the ones that do not, either change the material inside the rubber from polyester to rayon, nylon, steel etc or use more of that material in a single denser layer. Some also put different ingredients in the rubber to change the compound to stiffen it up.(Like how Michelin adds sunflower oil to the rubber to enhance traction). This naturally creates a harder to puncture surface. Something soft is easier to stab with a knife than something stiff.(Even if only slightly). Thats all I was trying to get at. Its how we did it at the Bridgestone plant.I never said they increased the actual plies the tire has. In fact I said quite the opposite. It's interesting you change your message every post. 1st it's this... then it's that. I also never said that BFG didn't change the design of the sidewall on the E. Only that the E does not have increased puncture resistance in the sidewall. They also changed the actual tread design on some of the E rated tires too, to offer increased squirm resistance and performance that an HD truck might need.
Just because a sidewall of a tire might support a higher load rating or be stiffer does not directly translate to the tire having increased sidewall puncture resistance. It just means it was designed with a different set of performance parameters as a goal.
I don't think it's worth arguing this to death here, especially given both load rating BFG tires are excellent. My goal is to share info with others here to not blindly following the notion that tires meant for 3/4 ton and 1 ton+ pickup trucks used for towing applications necessarily translate to a more durable sidewall. Likewise, they might not be the best choice for our very lightweight (comparatively) trucks and the downsides should be considered. This coming from a person running an E load KO3 on a Tacoma.
Again, other manufactures that make popular tires for our vehicles actually make the sidewalls in their E rated tires less durable than their C counterpart. This is of course despite them having a much higher load rating on the E. It's just design priorities.
Modern tires no longer add physical plies for more load rating in general. It's a notional concept from tires of yore. Carcass changes for more capacity are generally reinforcement for more tire pressures, including finer belt spacing per inch and higher gauge belts. It's possible they do adjust thickness of layers to your point, so it's plausible though not always that there is incrementally more puncture resistance. BFG has stated in interviews their load C and E KO2s have the same puncture resistance. I trust them in regard to this. I've ran E and C BFGs in the same size in the past and the Cs were definitely more comfortable on lightweight vehicles. I'm now on an E KO3, because I wanted a 275/70R18 and that is all that's offered. Luckily BFGs aren't terribly stiff in the higher load ranges (I'm looking at you Mickey Thomson). It's also why I didn't choose the same size in a Falken AT4W, given they are load E yet only have a 2 ply sidewall in that size (ie, worst of both worlds).
Again, run what you'd like.
