Understanding agricultural rims, Inner tubes and Valves

The tyre/rim pairing is an essential element in ensuring that your tractor performs well. That's why it's crucial to ensure that the two elements are compatible. To find out how, just follow these simple steps.

Identify the tyre diameter

To ensure that a rim is compatible with a tyre, the first thing to check is the diameter, which is measured in inches.
The diameter must be the same for your rim as for your tyre. It's a bit like shoe size: if you wear a size 42 shoe, you'll have a hard time fitting your foot into a size 38 shoe!

Take as example the dimension 540/65 R30 of the Michelin AXIOBIB2 range:
In the tyre size, the two numbers after the "R" are the Rims diameter. In our example, R30 means that the tyre has an inner diameter of 30 inches.

Check the width and profile of the rim

This is the value you get when you match the tyre diameter.
On all our tyre pages, there is a “Technical Specifications” section in which the “recommended rims” and “approved rims” for the requested size and corresponding diameter are indicated.

Example of technical specifications for the dimension 540/65 R30, Michelin AXIOBIB2 range.

We can see that the recommended rim reference for this 30' diameter tyre is W18L.

This reference indicates its approved profile and width.

See the technical specifications of this dimension:

The commercial designation of the tyre indicates whether the tyre is Tubetype (TT) or Tubeless (TL). At Michelin, we only manufacture tubeless tyres (i.e. tyres without inner tubes) for agricultural machinery.

For example, this commercial designation VF 540/65 R39 158D/155E TL ends with TL, which means that the tyre can be mounted without an inner tube on a rim that is also tubeless.

If for any reason you wish to fit a tube in your tyre, we indicate, if available, a reference for a compatible tube in our table (see our technical documentation or any product sheet). This reference appears in the "Tube (Code)" column.

Note that this reference may be preceded by the letter “M” (eg. “M754”). In our example of a 540/65 R30 tyre, the reference for an inner tube is 754.

With this inner tube reference, you can then consult our "Inner tube and valve references" table to also find the compatible valve reference.

As in our example you have identified that the tyre has a diameter of 30, you can go directly to the section of the table that corresponds to this diameter. Next, identify the inner tube reference.