Tires & wheels for towing

Bedlam wrote:

vonzoog wrote:
OK I'll bite. What in the world does towing a fifth wiheel have to do with the weight rating. Loading 6000 pounds in the bed or putting 3000 pounds of fifth wheel in the bed, what in the world is the difference? Maybe I just totally don't understand. Would someone please explain?

Many of the bling rims have a 2000-2500 lb rating which is just fine for a grocery getter but outright dangerous for someone that carries maximum weight in their bed or tows a FW with a heavy pin weight.

So what you/they are saying these wheels are useless for any type of towing or load carrying. Then for everyone in this forum my thought would be, did you buy the truck to do a job or did you really what a grocery hauler?

My point being is, if you are limited to 2500 lbs.,the whole purpose of owning a truck is useless for what the truck is design to do. It's kind of like the young guys that pay for a diesel only to put oversized tires on it to go "muddin". I must be getting old. I just don't get it.

American Force: http://americanforcewheels.com/en/wheels-collection/item/7

Vision: http://www.visionwheel.com/wheels/5456/vision-hd

Rickson: http://www.ricksontruckwheels.com/wheels-dodge-srw.php

vonzoog wrote:
OK I'll bite. What in the world does towing a fifth wiheel have to do with the weight rating. Loading 6000 pounds in the bed or putting 3000 pounds of fifth wheel in the bed, what in the world is the difference? Maybe I just totally don't understand. Would someone please explain?

Many of the bling rims have a 2000-2500 lb rating which is just fine for a grocery getter but outright dangerous for someone that carries maximum weight in their bed or tows a FW with a heavy pin weight.

Discount Tire appears to have weight ratings for most of their wheels listed on their website.

OK I'll bite. What in the world does towing a fifth wiheel have to do with the weight rating. Loading 6000 pounds in the bed or putting 3000 pounds of fifth wheel in the bed, what in the world is the difference? Maybe I just totally don't understand. Would someone please explain?

When I went shopping for new rims and tires for my 12 Ram 2500 CTD I found out some interesting things. Like mentioned some of the nicer looking rims aren't strong enough. I went to Discount Tire and worked with one of the sales guys. He got out a book and we both looked thru for some rims. I was going from 245/70/17 to 275/65/18. I found a few rims I liked and had already told him I tow a 5th wheel. On every rim I was interested in he called the rim MFG and asked about towing with them. One MFG actually said no if I was towing a 5th wheel. Long story short I finally found some that worked. So even though the rim has the load rating it's possible it may not be recommended for 5th wheel towing.
Sad but true story, I went to Les Schwab before and briefly talked about rims and tires. Some don't have load rating info on them so when I asked the LS sales guy he said don't worry about it, that if they have 8 lugs then they'll be fine. So not true.

A 275mm tread width is almost 11". It is fine on a 9" wide rim. I will warn you that many aftermarket rims are for bling and and are not forged or rated as high as your OEM models. Have you considered going to a 245/70R19.5 tire on a 19.5" Vision or Rickson rim? These are the same height as your OEM's but much better at weight handling (4500+ lb rating per wheel).

Following. I haven't shopped new wheels yet but I'm planning on swapping out the factory for aftermarket when I get new tires later this year. I've got the same crappy Firestones on my truck and with just under 25,000 they're getting pretty worn down.