What does load index 116 mean?

A round number, in the units the table was written in

1,250 kg is exactly what index 116 denotes. The pound equivalent, 2,756 lb, looks arbitrary because it is: the load index series was defined in kilograms and every imperial figure quoted against it is a conversion after the fact. Anyone comparing two tires by their pound ratings is comparing two rounded translations of numbers that were never in pounds.

The step size around here is 35 kg

115 is 1,215 kg and 117 is 1,285 kg, so in this stretch of the table one index point is worth 35 kg — roughly 2.8% of the load. The series is not a fixed percentage and not a fixed increment; it changes pace, using 30 kg steps a little lower down and 50 kg steps a little higher. That is why an index difference of one cannot be converted to a weight without looking at where on the chart it falls.

Four tires, and the number that is not on the sidewall

Four tires at index 116 total 11,023 lb of rated capacity. That figure exceeds the gross weight rating of essentially every vehicle these tires are fitted to, and deliberately so — the rating is measured at the inflation pressure stamped on the tire's own sidewall, under standardised conditions, with no allowance for the load transfer that puts more than a quarter of the vehicle's weight on one corner during a manoeuvre. The vehicle's door-jamb placard, not the tire's index, records what the vehicle was built around.

Where 116 turns up

It is one of the most frequently printed indexes on light-truck sizes, which is why the decoder on this site opens with it. Feeding it a full service description shows the load and speed halves side by side; the load index table has the whole series if you need to read a neighbour.