What about 19.5" tires on your SRW truck?
Some of you may remember that we drove 3000 miles of haul roads in the Arctic in 2009 towing our Arctic Fox 29V. The Arctic Fox was quite comfortable and survived with only minor damage, but it was t...
Forum Discussion
bedrocker wrote:
My toyo M-55's are E rated 10 ply sidewall tires
very nice tires The forest service uses them
around here check em out :)
Actually, they are only 2 or 3 ply, depending on the size; 2-ply in the LT265/70R17 size. The only M-55 available that offers increased load capacity and will clear the brake rotors is the LT275/70R18, which is also a 2-ply tire and would require new wheels.
We have two criteria for tires:
Increased load capacity. There are two ways to increase load capacity: increase the size of the tire or increase the air pressure in the tire. LT tires are limited to an E-rating of 80 PSI, so means larger tires are needed to carry more load, which leads to clearance and bearing problems. A popular, although problematic solution.
More rugged & resistant to sidewall damage than an LT All-Terrain tire. This can be achieved by increasing the actual number of ply in the sidewall (ply-ratings are useless in this regard) and/or to build protective blocks on the sides of the tire. High quality MT tires add one ply to the sidewall and many have tread blocks on the sidewalls and bead protection. Commercial G-rated tires double the number of actual ply in the sidewall and while they don't have the tread blocks on the sides, they are specially designed to shrug off sidewall damage due to pot holes and curbs.
Unfortunately, there's no such thing as an LT tire that's built as strongly as a commercial tire. Besides that, their E-rating doesn't offer any additional capacity over the OEM tires. BTW, I worked for a major CA fire dept with numerous off-road fire apparatus. Like other gov't agencies, the primary criteria for tire purchases was price.
