Tire Weight Carrying Capacity?

[Dave_H_M]

I currently tow with an F 250. Last winter I had one of the rear tires tread separate at 70% remaining.

So I got this thought of trashing the kid's inheritance some more and swapping out in 17 and go to an F 350 SRW. So I stopped at a Ford dealer today and discussed this with a salesman. I might as well have talked to the moon. The Brochure i picked up was not much help.

I bet that a bunch of you folks have already thrashed this out. All I want to do is talk tire load carrying capacity.

So could I have gotten larger diameter tires that would have upped the capacity on the F 250 tires in the first place?

Does the F 350 come with tires that have a bigger carrying capacity than the 17" E Tires?

[Dave_H_M]

bid time, I did not want to get into all the historical whys.

however, my previous experience was with the previous F 250 with the factory grabbers and a smaller fifth wheel (don't have the numbers anymore)

Anyway I was tooling down the highway and ka BANG. a rear went off like a shotgun. That was kinda exciting when the rim hit the pavement. I always thank the lucky stars that I was on a straight away.

I think this thread was worth while as i look down the road. As I said in the beginning, I was hoping that this thread could be about tires and their capacity.

[bid_time]

You are basing your whole premise of tire separation on the loading of the tire. Maybe that ain't even the issue, maybe you just got a bad tire. By your own admission you are 350 lbs under the tire rating. And I would bet there is a factor of safety of about 50% built into the tire. I think you're just throwing money at a make believe problem. I'm pretty confident you solve the problem by going to higher rated tires. But you may also solve the problem by just buying a new tire to replace the bad one and be done with it.

[justafordguy]

Dave H M wrote:
Whoah ford guy, what kinda tires are you referring to? I have to have highway tread.

It seems from your post that my "tire guy" did not make an effort to satisfy my desires.

i am interested in what you are running.

Mine are all terrain but they make them in a street tread also. You want the Nitto Dura Grappler. They get great reviews and many people say they get 60k miles out of them.

[justafordguy]

Old-Biscuit wrote:

justafordguy wrote:
You can easily upgrade the tire load capacity and stay with 17" rims. My tires are 285/70R17 and are rated for 3750 lbs.

Also the rear axle on the F250 and F350 SRW are the same so the rear axle capacity is the same even though the sticker shows the F250 is less.

Haven't seen any with higher ratings so curious

What Brand?

Are you running them front and rear?

IF on fronts......any turning radius issues?

I'm running the Nitto Terra Grappler 285/70R17, they are an all terrain tire, have great traction and ride very nice on the road. Nitto also has this same tire in a street tread, I think it's called Durra Grappler. There are several other brands that have this same size/capacity tire.

I run them front and rear (it's a 4x4) and they fit great with my stock suspension.

[JIMNLIN]

In the meantime, I thought that someone here had already done that and I could gain from that knowledge.

check out our truck camper forum and truck camper specific websites as these folks understand what your wanting to achieve with the higher rated tires and wheels.

Also the F350 SRW 18"-20" wheels are rated up to 3590 lbs (page #88) Ford 20" wheels
even though Fords OEM 18" tires show a 3640 lb rating and the 20" tires at 3750 lbs.

[Cummins12V98]

rhagfo wrote:

Old-Biscuit wrote:
You truck tire 'problem' is the same as mine......17" rims therefore 3195# MAX Load Rating on those LT 'E' tires.

So what is your trucks RAWR?
Your truck has a 10000# GVWR with a MAX TOW rating of 12,200#
Your 'E' 3195# tires are adequate weight capacity

My rear tires are loaded to max rating and I use 80psi
Towed FT traveling weekly and never had a truck tire issue (Michelin AT/2)

What brand of tire?
What PSI do you use towing?

Have you ever weighed truck/trailer combo?
Do you know how much weight on truck rear tires?

This is exactly why I didn't do the 17" upgrade to my 2001 Ram the 265/75-16 E have a 3,415# load rating, the 265/70-17E have a 3,195# load rating, why give up 440# of extra capacity per axle! :S

Yea so true but the 3rd gen wheels look so good on the 2nd gen's. MY 98 12V my Son owns.

[BenK]

srt20 wrote:
I had 285-70-17 snip...

So idk if the powers that be mandated tire weight capacity changes?

I'd guess not enough folks bought them, so lost money and/or not making
enough to justify carrying it on their books (factory floor, warehouses, etc)

[srt20]

I had 285-70-17 Hankook Dyna Pro ATM tires on my truck. They were rated at 3750 Lbs.
I put new tires on this fall, and I could not find ANY tires rated higher than 3195 lbs for the same size tire, in a similar tread pattern, including the exact same Hankook tires which I ended up getting again. These are AT tires, not highway tread.

So idk if the powers that be mandated tire weight capacity changes?

[blt2ski]

Do not quote me, but if one can find 285-75-16, you are in the 3800-3900 range vs 3750 for the 17" 70 series version.

Then again, a 285 may take a wider rim than a 265 width tire. so make sure you have the width. A local tire deal last wednesday when I got new tires for my C2500, tried to sell me 265-75-16's instead of the stock 245's....on 6.5" rims. WHile I know many of you have done this, my experience has been horrible vs 7.5" rims. So no, he was not putting 265's on my truck!

Oh, the lowest capacity LR E tire "I" know of, is a 215-75-16 at around 2500lbs.....a bit lower than the highest in the 3800 lbs range!

"IF" one really needs more tire load capacity, I would look at 225-70-19.5, also 31.5" in diam as is the stock 265-70-17 rubber, if you go to an LR H ie 16ply tire, you get iirc close to 4500 or so lbs per tire from the label on the rear of my mdt with 4 of these. I have 16-17K or so label capacity with the 4! This would be MY first choice.

Marty

[Old-Biscuit]

justafordguy wrote:
You can easily upgrade the tire load capacity and stay with 17" rims. My tires are 285/70R17 and are rated for 3750 lbs.

Also the rear axle on the F250 and F350 SRW are the same so the rear axle capacity is the same even though the sticker shows the F250 is less.

Haven't seen any with higher ratings so curious

What Brand?

Are you running them front and rear?

IF on fronts......any turning radius issues?

[Dave_H_M]

Gees Bedlam, that is a great idea.

I am gonna get on the local list.

[Bedlam]

!7" Ford rims are rated lower than their 18" cousins, so I'm not confident that just getting higher rated tires will be a safe choice. See if the dealer has "take offs" from a F350 that have the higher capacity. I was able to upgrade my F250 from 17" rims with 245/75R17 tires to 18" with 275/70R18 E rated 3640 lb tires for very little money. Later, I upgraded again to Vision 19.5" rims rated at 4500 lbs each and H rated 245/70R19.5 tires.

BTW: "take offs" are new tires and rims removed from a new truck because the dealer or customer upgraded the truck to an aftermarket set.

[Dave_H_M]

Whoah ford guy, what kinda tires are you referring to? I have to have highway tread.

It seems from your post that my "tire guy" did not make an effort to satisfy my desires.

i am interested in what you are running.

[justafordguy]

You can easily upgrade the tire load capacity and stay with 17" rims. My tires are 285/70R17 and are rated for 3750 lbs.

Also the rear axle on the F250 and F350 SRW are the same so the rear axle capacity is the same even though the sticker shows the F250 is less.