Road Roller Tyre Size in India: Sizes, Ply Rating and Pressure

A road roller’s tyre size is the size of the rubber wheels it drives on, and the first thing to know is that most road rollers do not have any. Of the 45 rollers listed on DesiMachines, 25 run on tyres and 20 run on two steel drums with no tyre fitted anywhere.

On the machines that do have tyres, the answer is unusually simple. Every one of the 21 soil compactors listed on DesiMachines runs the same tyre size: 23.1-26. That holds from a 9,700 kg Dynapac up to a 22,000 kg SANY, across twelve brands, as per the current September 2026 spec sheets.

This guide sets out which rollers carry tyres, what size they take, what the numbers in that size actually mean, and what pressure a pneumatic roller runs them at.

Which road rollers actually have tyres?

It depends entirely on the type of roller, and the three types are built very differently. A drum is the smooth steel cylinder that does the compacting. Some machines compact with steel, some with rubber.

Here is how the 45 rollers break down.

So on a soil compactor the tyres only carry and drive the machine. The compacting is done by the drum. On a pneumatic roller the tyres are the compacting tool. And on a tandem roller there is no tyre to replace at all, which is worth knowing before you go looking for one.

What tyre size does a soil compactor take?

Every single-drum soil compactor on the list takes a 23.1-26 tyre at the rear. All 21 machines, from twelve different brands, at operating weights from 9,700 kg to 22,000 kg.

That is genuinely useful if you own one. The tyre on a JCB VM117 is the same size as the tyre on a HAMM HC 139iD, an Ammann, a Dynapac or an ACE, so a dealer who stocks the size stocks it for almost every single-drum machine on an Indian road job.

What does change between brands is the ply rating, written as PR. It tells you how many layers of cord are built into the tyre casing. More plies means a stiffer, tougher tyre that carries more load and resists cuts better, at the cost of a slightly harsher ride.

One practical warning about reading these spec sheets. The same tyre is written nine different ways across the 21 machines: 23.1-26 TL, 23.1-26 8PR, 23.1-26-12PR, 23.1 x 26, 12 PR, 23.1 / 26-8 PR, AW 23.1-26 8 PR, 23.1/26 8PR Tubeless, 23.1-26-12G23TL, and 23.1 x 26 VRC 18-R3 8PR TL.

Those all describe one tyre size. The extra letters are the manufacturer’s own tread and construction codes. If you are comparing two brochures side by side and the strings look different, check the first two numbers before you assume the tyres are different.

What do the numbers in 23.1-26 mean?

This is standard off-road tyre sizing notation, and once you can read it you can read the size on almost any wheeled machine.

• 23.1 is the section width, meaning how wide the tyre is across its widest point, in inches. That is about 587 mm.
• 26 is the rim diameter in inches, so 660 mm. This is the wheel the tyre has to fit onto, and it is the number you cannot change.
• PR is the ply rating, as explained above.
• TL means tubeless. The tyre seals against the rim itself and runs without an inner tube.

The rim diameter is the one that matters most when you buy. A 26 inch tyre will not go on a 20 inch rim, whatever the rest of the code says.

>> Looking at soil compactors? See every single drum soil compactor available in India, with the full spec sheet for each machine.

What tyre size does a pneumatic tyre roller take?

A pneumatic tyre roller is a different animal. It has no drum at all. It compacts using rows of smooth rubber tyres, and those tyres are chosen for the job, not just to carry the machine.

All four PTRs run a 20 inch (508 mm) rim, but the tyre widths differ.

Two things in that table decide how well the machine works.

Tyre overlap is how much the rear row of tyres covers the gaps left by the front row. It runs from 42 mm to 63 mm on these machines. Without overlap you would get compacted strips with soft lines between them, so the overlap is what turns rows of separate tyres into one continuous compacted mat.

Rolling width is the strip the machine actually presses in one pass, from 1,980 mm to 2,370 mm here. That is the figure to use when you work out how many passes a lane needs, not the machine’s overall width.

The SANY is the odd one out with nine tyres rather than eight. An odd number means the rear row sits between the front row instead of behind it, which is another way of getting the same continuous coverage.

What tyre pressure does a pneumatic roller run?

On a PTR, tyre pressure is a compaction setting. You change it deliberately for the layer you are rolling, which is not true of any other roller.

Three of the four machines publish a working range. The L&T 2490 HD and the SANY SPR260C-10 PRO both run 2 to 8 bar, and the Volvo PT220 runs 3.5 to 8 bar. The Dynapac CP275’s spec sheet carries a malformed pressure figure, so we have left it out rather than print a number we cannot stand behind. Ask the dealer for that one in writing.

Lower pressure makes the tyre flatten out, spreading the load over a wider footprint. That kneads the surface and suits a bituminous layer. Higher pressure makes the tyre rounder and harder, concentrating the load into a smaller patch to push density deeper into a granular base.

Soil compactors do not work this way. Their tyres only drive the machine, so you set them to the pressure in the operator’s manual and leave them there.

How much weight sits on one tyre?

On a pneumatic roller this figure is published as wheel load per tyre, and it is the number that actually does the compacting. Across the four machines it runs from 2,890 kg to 3,333 kg per tyre.

It matters because a PTR can be ballasted, meaning loaded with water, sand or steel plates to make it heavier for a harder layer. That changes the load on every tyre, which is why the tyres have to be rated for the machine’s full ballasted weight and not its empty weight. Ballasting and the two weights printed on a PTR spec sheet are explained in full in the pneumatic tyre roller guide.

Soil compactors and tandem rollers do not publish a per-tyre load, because on those machines the drum carries the compacting duty.

Why do tandem rollers have no tyres?

A tandem roller compacts with two steel drums, one at each end, and drives on those same drums. There is no rubber anywhere on the machine, so there is no tyre size to look up and no tyre to replace.

None of the 20 tandem rollers publishes a tyre field of any kind, in either of the two spec stores behind the product pages. The field is genuinely absent because the machine genuinely has no tyres.

If you have been sent looking for a road roller tyre for a double drum machine, what you almost certainly need is a drum or a drum repair. The road roller parts guide covers what the drum is made of and which parts wear out first.

Buying a replacement roller tyre in India

We should be straight with you here. DesiMachines sells machines, not tyres. There are no tyre part numbers and no tyre prices here, so we are not going to quote you a figure we cannot stand behind.

What this page gives you is the thing that actually gets a dealer to quote correctly: the exact size, ply rating and construction your machine runs on. Take the full string from your own machine’s spec sheet, or read it off the sidewall of the tyre itself. The sidewall is always the final word.

Two habits worth keeping. Replace the rear tyres on a soil compactor as a pair, so the machine sits level and tracks straight. And on a PTR, keep every tyre the same size and rating across both rows, because one odd tyre changes the load and the footprint under that wheel, and that shows up as a line in the finished surface.

>> Buying or replacing the machine instead? Browse every road roller and compactor available in India, or start with the compactor buying guide.

Road roller tyre size: the short version

• Of 45 rollers listed, 25 have tyres. The 20 tandem rollers have none.
• All 21 soil compactors run 23.1-26 rear tyres. Ten are 8 PR, six are 12 PR, five are tubeless with no ply rating stated.
• That one size is written nine different ways across brands. Read the first two numbers.
• All 4 pneumatic tyre rollers run a 20 inch rim, in widths from 11.0 to 13/80, with 8 or 9 tyres.
• PTR working pressure runs 2 to 8 bar, and on a PTR the pressure is a compaction setting.
• Per-tyre load on a PTR runs 2,890 kg to 3,333 kg, and it rises when the machine is ballasted.

Read next: road roller dimensions and transport for the widths and heights that decide whether the machine fits your site, and backhoe loader tyre size or wheel loader tyre sizes if you run wheeled machines alongside your roller. Buying second hand? See the used road roller buying guide.

Specifications quoted here are taken from our listings at the time of writing. Prices, specifications and features are indicative, vary by variant, location and date, and should always be confirmed with the official OEM or authorised dealer before any purchase decision. DesiMachines is not liable for decisions taken on the basis of information that may have changed after publication.