FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Everything you need to know before getting started with the Tire Size API.
300+
Free requests/day
99.9%
Uptime target
4
Pricing plans
24h
Support response
General
Overview of the Tire Size API and who it's built for.
  • Provides accurate, up-to-date tire fitment data for vehicles across a wide range of makes, models, years, and trims
  • A single request returns the exact OEM tire size for any supported vehicle — the full size string plus its width, aspect ratio, and rim diameter
  • Built for tire retailers, automotive platforms, fleet management systems, and e-commerce stores that need reliable fitment data without building their own database
  • Tire retailers — power your "find tires by vehicle" search widget
  • E-commerce platforms — filter and recommend tires for any vehicle
  • Fleet managers — automate tire spec lookups across a mixed fleet
  • Automotive apps — add fitment data without a database of your own
  • Developers — integrate tire data into any product via a simple REST API
  • Yes — visit our live API demo to run real searches by vehicle or tire size without creating an account
  • The Free tier gives you 300 requests per day at no cost — no credit card required
  • All responses are in JSON format over HTTPS — standard REST conventions
  • Full OpenAPI 3.0 spec available in both YAML and JSON — import directly into Postman, Insomnia, or any code generator
  • We target 99.9% uptime — check real-time status at /api/health
  • Business customers can request a custom SLA — contact us to discuss
  • Help Center — step-by-step guides and troubleshooting for common issues
  • Contact form — we respond within 24 hours
  • /api/health — check if there is an ongoing incident
Tip: Check the Help Center first — most authentication and 404 issues are solved there in under a minute.
  • A 429 Access temporarily throttled or 403 Access suspended response means bulk-access patterns were detected on your key under our Terms of Use §7.1
  • Stop the bulk job first. A throttle lifts by itself once traffic on the key has been quiet for a while — it does not clear simply because time has passed, so a script that keeps retrying at speed stays throttled for as long as it runs
  • Repeated throttles require progressively longer quiet periods, and after several the key needs a support review before it resumes
  • Suspension is always reviewed by a person and is lifted by contacting support
  • See the Help Center troubleshooting guide for the full walkthrough
Note: These terms apply the same way on every plan, so changing plans is not the fix. If your workload genuinely needs bulk data, ask us about a commercial data license.
Pricing & Plans
Everything about plans, billing, limits, and cancellation.
Free
$0 / month
300 req/day
Starter
$40 / month
5,000 req/day
Pro
$70 / month
50,000 req/day
Business
$150 / month
80,000 req/day
  • Completely free — no credit card required
  • 300 requests per day (up to 100 per hour), resetting at midnight Eastern Time (America/Toronto)
  • Designed for development, testing, and small projects
  • Upgrade any time from your dashboard when you need more volume
Note: The Free plan is also rate-limited per IP. For production use, upgrade to Starter or higher.
  • You'll receive a 429 Too Many Requests response for any requests over your limit
  • Quota resets at midnight Eastern Time (America/Toronto) automatically — no action needed
  • Monitor usage from your dashboard or upgrade to avoid interruptions in production
  • Three endpoints carry a monthly quota in addition to — not instead of — your plan's daily request limit:
  • /by_vin/{vin} — Free 10, Starter 500, Pro 5,000, Business 20,000 (Free also gets a one-time 50-lookup welcome bonus)
  • /reverse_lookup — Free 10, Starter 5,000, Pro 20,000, Business 60,000 (Free also gets a one-time 10-lookup trial bonus)
  • /search_allsizes — Business 500; not available on other plans
  • Monthly quotas reset on the first of each month (Eastern Time, America/Toronto); daily limits reset at midnight Eastern Time
  • Everything else — including /by_vehicle, the vehicle → tire size direction most apps use — runs on the daily limit only
Tip: Call GET /api/v1/usage or read the X-VIN-Quota-*, X-RevLookup-Quota-*, and X-AllSizes-Quota-* response headers to see exactly what you have left.
  • GET /api/v1/search_allsizes returns every distinct tire size in the database in one cached call, and is available on the Business plan only
  • Free, Starter, and Pro keys receive 403 Business subscription required for this endpoint
  • Business includes 500 size-catalog calls per month — the response is cacheable for an hour, so a single daily refresh is usually plenty
  • On any plan you can still build a size list from /search_allwidth and /by_size/*
  • Billed monthly on the date you first subscribed
  • Receipt sent by email after each charge
  • View full billing history in your account dashboard
  • Cancel anytime from your dashboard under Plans → Cancel Subscription
  • Keep your current plan access until the end of the billing period — no immediate cutoff
  • Account reverts to the Free tier automatically after the period ends
  • Go to your dashboard and click Plans
  • Upgrades take effect immediately
  • Downgrades apply at the start of the next billing cycle — you keep current limits until then
  • Refund requests are evaluated case by case
  • If you were charged in error or experienced significant downtime on our side, contact us and we'll make it right
  • We consider discount requests on a case-by-case basis
  • Reach out with a brief description of your project and we'll see what we can do
Technical
Authentication, integration, caching, and developer tools.
  • Pass your API key as a request header: x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY
  • Do not include it as a URL query parameter — it will be rejected
  • Get your key from your account dashboard under the API Key tab
  • Works with any language that can make HTTP requests — it's a standard REST API
  • Our API docs include ready-to-use examples for JavaScript, Python, and cURL
  • The OpenAPI spec can auto-generate client code for Go, PHP, Ruby, Java, C#, and more via OpenAPI Generator
  • Technically yes, but strongly not recommended
  • Client-side calls expose your API key in the page source — it can be scraped and abused
Best practice: Proxy requests through your own backend. Your backend holds the key, the browser never sees it. This also lets you add your own caching layer.
  • CORS is enabled for registered domains
  • Need a specific domain added? Contact us with your domain and we'll add it to the allowlist
  • Direct client-side API calls are not recommended for security reasons (see above)
  • Tire fitment data changes rarely — caching is highly recommended
  • Lookup lists (all makes, years, widths) — cache for 24 hours or longer
  • Vehicle fitment data — cache for 7 days safely
  • Caching reduces daily request usage, speeds up your app, and prevents hitting rate limits during traffic spikes
  • OpenAPI YAML — import into Postman, Insomnia, etc.
  • OpenAPI JSON — for automated pipelines and code generators
  • Explore and test all endpoints interactively in our Swagger UI directly in the browser
  • Production: https://tire.vdim.app/api/v1
  • Documentation: https://tire.vdim.app/api/docs
  • Health check: https://tire.vdim.app/api/health
  • All endpoints require HTTPS — HTTP requests are not accepted
  • Yes — GET /api/v1/by_vin/{vin} decodes a 17-character VIN and returns the vehicle's factory tire sizes
  • VIN lookups have a monthly quota by plan: Free 10, Starter 500, Pro 5,000, Business 20,000
  • Free plans get a one-time welcome bonus of 50 VIN lookups to try the feature
  • The quota resets on the first of each month (America/Toronto); track it via the X-VIN-Quota-Remaining response header or /api/v1/usage
  • Yes — GET /api/v1/search_allsizes returns every distinct tire size in the database, with no parameters required
  • Available on the Business plan only, metered at 500 calls per month
  • Returns size strings only — no vehicle or fitment linkage — so it's built for seeding a size picker or your own sizing engine
  • Responses are cacheable for an hour (Cache-Control: public, max-age=3600), so one refresh a day is normally enough
  • GET /api/v1/usage returns a vinQuota, reverseLookupQuota, and allSizesQuota block, each with monthlyLimit, monthlyUsed, monthlyRemaining, and resetTime
  • Every quota'd response also carries headers: X-VIN-Quota-Limit / -Remaining / -Reset, and the equivalent X-RevLookup-Quota-* and X-AllSizes-Quota-* families
  • While a one-time bonus is still available you'll also see X-VIN-Bonus-Remaining or X-RevLookup-Bonus-Remaining
  • allSizesQuota.monthlyLimit is null on plans without size-catalog access
Tip: The -Reset headers are Unix timestamps — use them to schedule retries instead of polling.
  • All error responses use a consistent JSON structure: { "error": "...", "status": 401, "timestamp": "..." }
  • 401 — invalid or missing API key
  • 403 — the endpoint requires a higher plan, or access has been restricted under the fair-use terms
  • 404 — no data found for that vehicle
  • 429 — a limit was hit; branch on the error field to tell them apart: "Daily API request limit exceeded", "Monthly VIN quota exceeded", "Monthly reverse-lookup quota exceeded", "Monthly size-catalog quota exceeded", or "Access temporarily throttled"
  • 500 — server error; retry after a short delay — these are transient
Tip: Honour the Retry-After header when it is present, and use exponential backoff otherwise.
Data & Coverage
What's in the database, how accurate it is, and how to handle gaps.
  • Covers passenger vehicles, SUVs, and light trucks for the North American market
  • Use /search_allmake to get the full list of supported makes
  • Use /year_range?make=Toyota to check year coverage for a specific make
  • Reflects OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) specifications — the sizes vehicles ship with from the factory
  • Data is sourced and verified from manufacturer documentation
  • Found a discrepancy? Report it and we'll investigate and correct it
  • Updated as new model year data becomes available — typically annually for new model years
  • Ongoing corrections and additions throughout the year
  • Follow our blog for update announcements and new endpoint releases
  • No — the API covers OEM fitment data only (what the vehicle came with from the factory)
  • Does not include aftermarket wheel sizes, lifted fitments, plus-sizing recommendations, or winter tire packages
  • This scope keeps the data reliable and unambiguous
  • Use /search_allmake to confirm the exact make spelling — spelling and spacing matter (e.g. Land Rover not Land-Rover)
  • Try omitting the trim parameter to get all trims for that model
  • If the vehicle is genuinely missing, contact us with the year, make, model, and trim — we'll prioritize adding it
  • Different trim levels often ship with different wheel and tire sizes
  • Example: a base LE trim may use 17" wheels while the XSE uses 18"
  • The API returns all trims — always filter by trim for accurate fitment data
  • 235 — section width in millimeters (how wide the tire is)
  • 45 — aspect ratio (sidewall height as % of width)
  • R — radial construction
  • 18 — wheel diameter in inches
  • The API returns separate fields (width, aspectratio, diameter) as well as the combined tiresize string
  • VIN decoding is backed by the NHTSA vPIC dataset, the U.S. government's public vehicle product information catalogue
  • NHTSA publishes a new snapshot each month, and we refresh against it monthly — so newly registered VIN patterns are picked up shortly after they're published
  • The decoded year / make / model is then matched against our OEM fitment data to return the factory tire sizes
  • If a VIN decodes but returns no tire sizes, the vehicle isn't in our fitment coverage yet — let us know and we'll look at adding it
  • Our Terms of Use §7.1 set out what the API may not be used for. In plain terms, you may not:
  • Systematically harvest, crawl, or bulk-download the data, including by enumerating or iterating across endpoints to sweep the catalogue
  • Reconstruct a substantial portion of our tire-size or fitment database — including gradually over time or in aggregate across multiple accounts, keys, or IP addresses
  • Redistribute, resell, or publish responses as a standalone dataset
  • Access the fitment endpoints other than in response to genuine, human-initiated activity in your own application — no crawlers, headless browsers, or scheduled jobs iterating across vehicles or sizes
  • Circumvent rate limits, per-endpoint quotas, or other access controls
  • These rules apply identically on every plan, including Business. We monitor access and can throttle or suspend keys that breach them.
Need bulk data? Normal application use will never come close to these lines. If you genuinely need bulk or full-catalog data, contact us about a commercial data license — we're happy to help you get it the right way.

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