72 replies to this topic

[Mighty Dodge Ram]

Ntsqd makes THE point: buy the tire for your truck’s load and the majority of your usage. Sounds like you have a smaller truck so an “E” might be overkill. The tire I liked the most on my old 1/2-ton Dodge was a Bridgestone Desert Dueler LR-D. Not very sexy but smooth and confident onroad, capable “enough” offroad. Living in the Eastern Sierras I think you’d  want a true 3-peak snowflake rated tire. But there are plenty of M/S that would work. 
 

I know money is an issue, isn’t it always? If Bridgeport doesn’t have a local tire store it might be worth the drive to Bishop to talk to one of the locals there to see what they’re all driving. 

[teledork]

I missed a couple of posts while I was writing mine. 

 

 I ran my previous rig (T-100, 4-W Kestral shell) on  BFG All Terrain - pretty sure those are an E tire. Maybe that is why they dried and cracked before the tread wore out. The only failure I had was on an 8 year old tire and it still had a lot of tread. I am learning - slowly.  

 

 

 

[ntsqd]

BFG's are kind of famous for cracking at the root corners of the tread blocks, that's 'normal' for them.

 

I wouldn't put a P-Metric tire under a truck unless it was a wanna-be sports car (i.e. lowered, handling mods, etc.). Not all LT rated tires are load range E. In the smaller tires that are the stock size on a smaller truck you may be forced into a Load Range E tire just to get enough load capacity. In a bigger tire you may not need to go to E's to get that capacity. This is why I suggested knowing what the weight on each axle is. Pick the heaviest axle, divide its weight in half and you have the very, very bare minimum weight that all of the tires must be rated for. Better would be for the weight rating to exceed the weight by at least 1.5- 2 times.

 

There are disadvantages to Load Range E tires. To get that weight rating they have more plies. More plies also means that they ride stiffer and you have to run a lower pressure to get them to conform to the terrain the same than you would with, say, a Load Range B tire.

The flip side is that the stiffer ride man translate into being more stable on the pavement. The greater number of plies also make it harder to cut the tire when aired down.

[teledork]

BFG's are kind of famous for cracking at the root corners of the tread blocks, that's 'normal' for them.

 

I wouldn't put a P-Metric tire under a truck unless it was a wanna-be sports car (i.e. lowered, handling mods, etc.). Not all LT rated tires are load range E. In the smaller tires that are the stock size on a smaller truck you may be forced into a Load Range E tire just to get enough load capacity. In a bigger tire you may not need to go to E's to get that capacity. This is why I suggested knowing what the weight on each axle is. Pick the heaviest axle, divide its weight in half and you have the very, very bare minimum weight that all of the tires must be rated for. Better would be for the weight rating to exceed the weight by at least 1.5- 2 times.

 

There are disadvantages to Load Range E tires. To get that weight rating they have more plies. More plies also means that they ride stiffer and you have to run a lower pressure to get them to conform to the terrain the same than you would with, say, a Load Range B tire.

The flip side is that the stiffer ride man translate into being more stable on the pavement. The greater number of plies also make it harder to cut the tire when aired down.

The only LT tires in my size are E rated.  Would weighing the axles still be necessary? 

 

And I keep thinking - I may not drive much but when I do it almost always includes the Walker canyon. When I drove a smaller car (Tercel, Prius, Outback) I used to wear out tires at about 1/2 the length of the warranty. These Firestone LE2 haven't even made 1/3 of the warranty. 

Edited by teledork, 10 August 2022 - 04:09 PM.

[teledork]

I want to thank all for all the responses. 

[ntsqd]

The only LT tires in my size are E rated.  Would weighing the axles still be necessary? 

 

And I keep thinking - I may not drive much but when I do it almost always includes the Walker canyon. When I drove a smaller car (Tercel, Prius, Outback) I used to wear out tires at about 1/2 the length of the warranty. These Firestone LE2 haven't even made 1/3 of the warranty. 

Is that true across all brands of interest? If so, then the decision was made for you. Weighing the vehicle would only be for your own interest.

 

I was keeping Walker Canyon in the back of my head when thinking about this. They may not last any longer than the same tire in a different Load Range, but E's should be an advantage to stability in driving that section of road.

[teledork]

Is that true across all brands of interest? If so, then the decision was made for you. Weighing the vehicle would only be for your own interest.

 

I was keeping Walker Canyon in the back of my head when thinking about this. They may not last any longer than the same tire in a different Load Range, but E's should be an advantage to stability in driving that section of road.

 

I have not found a C or D rated light truck tire in my size.  I have found an XL rated passenger tire and I am considering that. 

 

But yeah - until I consolidated my two vehicles into the one truck I'd wear out those little 14" car tires but the E tires on the truck with the camper had to be replaced due to age - not miles. 

[ntsqd]

For XL's you may want to know the vehicle weight so that you don't unintentionally over load them.They're new to me and I don't know how their weight rating(s) compare to LT tires.

[teledork]

From what I have read XLs have additional reinforcement over the standard load passenger tire.

 

I don't entirely understand the weight index but the Falken Wildpeak XLs  have a weight index of 112, (2,469#) the current tires are 109 (2271#) There are a number of other tires like the Cooper Discoverer which have an index of 111 (2403#) but don't have that LT  E designation so would not have the reinforcement of the XL or the ply rating of the E. But  does the passenger type tire have too soft a sidewall regardless of the weight index? 

 

I need to do a dump run this weekend so I can get a total weight on my rig. There is ALWAYS something new to learn. 

[Sleddog]

I think weight index is only part of the equation. My Toyota came with P rated tires that only made it about 20,000 miles, mostly on Forest Service roads and no serious off roading. One road in particular was full of sharp rocks that were just too much for the P rated tire. Went to E rated all terrain tires with no regrets. Only lost about 1 mpg on fuel mileage and would never consider P rated for any sort of off road use, even just light duty tooling around on Forest Service roads.

I went through 2 sets of Toyo Open Country AT 2 and got almost 70,000 miles on each set.  But they were kind of noisy and it only got worse as the tires wore down. Currently have about 50,000 miles on a set of Hankook Dynapro AT2 and have been happy with them so far.