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joshuajim's avatar
joshuajim
Explorer II
Nov 06, 2014

Tire clearance

How much tire clearance do you have between the top of the tires on your trailer and the underside of the wheel well? On my Wildwood I have 2 1/4". My GVWR is 10,840#, but only weighs 8,100# loaded.

Only once has the tire hit the wheel well, but that was my fault as I ran over a curb and bounced the trailer.

4 Replies

  • BFL13 wrote:
    4" outer to 4 1/2 " inner on ours which has a slanting upper wheel well. Stock tires.

    That 10K GVWR also includes the pin wt so if that 8K weight is only the axle wt you are closer to the 10K GVWR.

    If there is an idea to change tires, beware also of the width clearance up in the wheel well. I looked at another tire but it was too fat. There is also a propane pipe that goes past behind the tires on ours that reduces the width clearance on one side of the trailer.

    Another clearance issue is how far apart the axles are so how close is the front tire to the back tire, but that is more for going to a taller tire. Our tires are 4 1/2 inches apart. Many trailers have less than that though.


    The 8K is total trailer weight including ball weight of about 1K. Yellow sticker is about 6500. I did install same size Maxxis (225's), but I never checked diameter of the oem's.
  • 4" outer to 4 1/2 " inner on ours which has a slanting upper wheel well. Stock tires.

    That 10K GVWR also includes the pin wt so if that 8K weight is only the axle wt you are closer to the 10K GVWR.

    If there is an idea to change tires, beware also of the width clearance up in the wheel well. I looked at another tire but it was too fat. There is also a propane pipe that goes past behind the tires on ours that reduces the width clearance on one side of the trailer.

    Another clearance issue is how far apart the axles are so how close is the front tire to the back tire, but that is more for going to a taller tire. Our tires are 4 1/2 inches apart. Many trailers have less than that though.
  • I believe that 2-1/2" to 3" is recommended to allow for suspension travel. I had to raise my suspension 2" when I went to LT tires.

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