19.5" Tire Comparisons

[n0arp]

I've been running a DRW for the last couple years, and prior to that had a SRW with 19.5s on it. I'm looking at possibly upgrading the DRW to 19.5s in the near future.

Currently running OE size 235/80r17 Goodyear Duratrac tires.

I ran Michelin XDS2 245/70r19.5 tires on my old truck, which were great on the road, but somewhat lackluster off pavement. A decent AT. I'm currently looking at the Toyo M608Z, Cooper RM253, and Goodyear G622 RSD tires, as well as considering any others I see with more aggressive treads.

We bought the truck camper to take further off the beaten path than we were going in our fifth wheel, and don't want to lose a bunch of that ability due to tire choice. Having run them before, I'm aware of the limitations that these have and understand that there will be compromises. I just want to minimize them.

For those of you who have 19.5s, what tires are you running, how do you use them, and what are your thoughts on them? There are a lot of reviews out there, but very few that I can find that actually discuss tire performance specifically in loose dirt (not sand that would require airing down), mud, and snow.

As an aside, I added Supersprings SSA24 leafs to my truck yesterday, and now the ride height with the truck camper is the same as the unloaded height before. A bit higher than I was going for, but I'll take it. Haven't driven it yet... The AirLift 7500XL bags could barely lift the camper and are still in place, but now can lift it with ease. Don't waste your money on those, except maybe to use for side to side leveling. Blargh.

Edit - I'm also strongly considering a larger LRE tire, such as 275/65r20 or 295/65r20 Cooper STT Pros on aftermarket DDC wheels. The wheels would be the limit then, with the fronts @3,500lbs/ea compared to the 3,085lb load rating of the factory tire size. The main concern with 275+ tires is fitting between the jacks of the camper.

[n0arp]

Grit dog wrote:

n0arp wrote:

Grit dog wrote:
How tall is that giddy up?

13'

Not bad. Looks taller sitting on the flatbed and the solar up top. Our old AF was like 12’-2” sitting in a pickup bed with a full size ( not low pro) AC.

Awesome looking setup btw!

Thanks. The A/C unit is tucked up about 1/2" under the glass of the solar panel above it, which means that the solar only adds an inch or so to overall height (frames, etc accounted for). It looks deceiving because it raises the entire roof to that height - instead of just sticking up like the AC unit - but also serves the purpose of pushing limbs, etc up and over instead of letting them collide with everything on the roof.

The flatbed added a bit more height than we planned for. They told us it would be 2", but it turned out to be more like 6-8". I don't have an exact measurement for the flatbed itself because we made other changes at the same time. Total height is right at 13' now, and before was around 12'5". And that measurement was taken before filling the toolboxes, but there probably isn't enough weight there to settle it much further. I don't actually mind the additional height because it means the toolboxes under the bed aren't a low point that I need to be concerned with - the rear boxes are just under 21" off the ground with the camper loaded.

Edit: now that everything is loaded, measured it at 155", so 12'11".

[Grit_dog]

n0arp wrote:

Grit dog wrote:
How tall is that giddy up?

13'

Not bad. Looks taller sitting on the flatbed and the solar up top. Our old AF was like 12’-2” sitting in a pickup bed with a full size ( not low pro) AC.

Awesome looking setup btw!

[n0arp]

Grit dog wrote:
How tall is that giddy up?

13'

[Grit_dog]

How tall is that giddy up?

[n0arp]

wintersun wrote:
19.5 tires are overkill on a DRW truck. With my SRW truck I replace the factory tires rated at 3095 lbs with Nitto tires rated at 3750 lbs and so had support for up to 7500 lbs or 4000 lbs of payload with the truck. with the addition of Supersprings my Chevy 2500 was dead level with 4,000 lbs in the bed.

Only if I was going with a camper that had a dry weight of more than 4,000 lbs would I have to decide between DRW or going to 19.5 tires and rims. The 19.5 rims and tires would have cost me more than $3,000 and so not a decision to make for grins.

Lets just say we're heavy enough to either need 19.5s, or to move to wider LRE tires that would also require new wheels, and have several downsides of their own.

The wheels these come with are 17x6, with 235/80r17 tires. With 6" wheels you can't really go any wider, nor much taller since you're starting with an 80 sidewall. Aftermarket 17xWIDER wheels don't seem to exist, or the couple I've found have poor weight ratings (2500lb/wheel), so you have to go to 20s at that point. With 20s, you're looking at new wheels, expensive tires, fitment/footprint issues due to width (too wide to back between standard dually mounts on campers), and perhaps most annoyingly... that all the aftermarket 20" wheels I found are positional, so you can't rotate them to any position or carry a universal spare. Or, you could run adapters and shaved 22.5s, which aren't well suited to these kinds of loads and have a whole set of other issues. Not to mention that all those LRE tires will wear quicker and are comparably fragile. So, there are a lot of valid reasons to look at 19.5s if exceeding the weight capacity for a DRW on OE size tires.

The difference is night and day over the OE. F-450/F-550 and GM/Ram 4500/5500 trucks are DRW and come with 19.5s for good reason.

[wintersun]

19.5 tires are overkill on a DRW truck. With my SRW truck I replace the factory tires rated at 3095 lbs with Nitto tires rated at 3750 lbs and so had support for up to 7500 lbs or 4000 lbs of payload with the truck. with the addition of Supersprings my Chevy 2500 was dead level with 4,000 lbs in the bed.

Only if I was going with a camper that had a dry weight of more than 4,000 lbs would I have to decide between DRW or going to 19.5 tires and rims. The 19.5 rims and tires would have cost me more than $3,000 and so not a decision to make for grins.

[n0arp]

Use this link for your pictures: http://photoposting.is-great.net/

[cptqueeg]

jshupe wrote:

cptqueeg wrote:

jshupe wrote:
Ended up reordering these today since the parts are in, except swapped the fronts out for Cooper RM253 due to stock issues there. Also ordered an Ironman I604 on steel spare.

Need the capacity now, because I'm placing a custom flatbed order.

Custom flatbed truck camper? If so what did you get?

Sorry, no, a custom flatbed to put my existing camper on.

97x102" flat bed
- tapered rear corners
- LED lights all around incl headache rack
- no ears on headache rack
- no stake pockets
- no rub rails
- 5/8" D rings welded to side at 1' intervals
- extra 7 way plug on rear driver's side
- two 48x18x18 toolboxes on top of the deck
- two 18x18x18 toolboxes on top of the deck
- two 30x18x18 toolboxes (in front of tires)
- two 18x18x18 toolboxes (behind tires)
- inset nuts for guide rails
- inset nuts for topside toolbox mounts
- guide rails for truck camper
- bolt-on brackets added to topside toolboxes
- recessed gooseneck hitch
- retain spare mount
- retain factory 2.5" receiver hitch
- factory backup sensor relocation
- factory backup camera relocation

I blueprinted the camper and am having the D-ring and toolbox placement, etc, where I want it. Looking forward to seeing how it comes out in a couple weeks.

Very specific requirements. Thanks for the pic.

Sounds like a great build.

[n0arp]

I received the new tires and extremely happy so far with the performance, with a couple hundred miles on them. No break in period required, unlike my previous 19.5" tires.

The Conti Terra HD3 tires I put on the drive axle spin less in identical conditions (loose dirt and mud in an area I've been frequenting recently) than the Goodyear Duratracs they replaced - something I was hopeful for, but not expecting. I had to use 4WD with the Duratracs but these keep going in 2WD. The rear end also feels stickier on curvy mountain roads, another thing I wasn't expecting. Only tested unloaded so far, but I'm sure loaded will be the same or better. Tread is very much like a MT, where the old tires were somewhere between AT and MT. Front tires are like ATs.

Unlike my last 19.5"s, I didn't have these RoadForce balanced - they just have 10oz Equal Flexx balancing beads in them. Aside from a vibration that runs from 10-15mph, they're smooth as glass. I don't have TPMS sensors in these either, because when I tried that on my last truck I could never get them to read reliably through the sidewall. I'm waiting on a Tazer Ram to arrive to disable the warning light -- I didn't order one originally, hoping it wouldn't obnoxiously complain. Wrong.

The spare I bought, which is the same Cooper Roadmaster RM253 LRH tire that I have on the steer axle, was an extremely tight fit but does fit in the stock spare location without requiring modification.

The difference in appearance is extremely subtle - the new wheels look the same as the old, but are 2.5" larger and the tires 1.5" larger, so the wheel well looks slighty more filled out. I gained exactly 3/4" measured at the fenders, so the estimated 1.5" difference is spot on. They must run true to size. Two people I've asked said they look more proportional to the truck, like they should have been from the factory. I can see that.

[n0arp]

cptqueeg wrote:

jshupe wrote:
Ended up reordering these today since the parts are in, except swapped the fronts out for Cooper RM253 due to stock issues there. Also ordered an Ironman I604 on steel spare.

Need the capacity now, because I'm placing a custom flatbed order.

Custom flatbed truck camper? If so what did you get?

Sorry, no, a custom flatbed to put my existing camper on.

97x102" flat bed
- tapered rear corners
- LED lights all around incl headache rack
- no ears on headache rack
- no stake pockets
- no rub rails
- 5/8" D rings welded to side at 1' intervals
- extra 7 way plug on rear driver's side
- two 48x18x18 toolboxes on top of the deck
- two 18x18x18 toolboxes on top of the deck
- two 30x18x18 toolboxes (in front of tires)
- two 18x18x18 toolboxes (behind tires)
- inset nuts for guide rails
- inset nuts for topside toolbox mounts
- guide rails for truck camper
- bolt-on brackets added to topside toolboxes
- recessed gooseneck hitch
- retain spare mount
- retain factory 2.5" receiver hitch
- factory backup sensor relocation
- factory backup camera relocation

I blueprinted the camper and am having the D-ring and toolbox placement, etc, where I want it. Looking forward to seeing how it comes out in a couple weeks.

[cptqueeg]

jshupe wrote:
Ended up reordering these today since the parts are in, except swapped the fronts out for Cooper RM253 due to stock issues there. Also ordered an Ironman I604 on steel spare.

Need the capacity now, because I'm placing a custom flatbed order.

Custom flatbed truck camper? If so what did you get?

[n0arp]

Ended up reordering these today since the parts are in, except swapped the fronts out for Cooper RM253 due to stock issues there. Also ordered an Ironman I604 on steel spare.

Need the capacity now, because I'm placing a custom flatbed order.

[n0arp]

Wheels, specifically the steel inners I believe. I was more interested in hearing the timeline than the parts.

[jimh406]

jshupe wrote:
I ended up cancelling the order because the original lead time was 2-3 weeks and they just doubled that to 4-6 weeks -- off to find another vendor, or back to the drawing board.

What was backordered the wheels or tires? If tires, take a look at the Toyo M655 or M920.