Tires for Towing (yes, another tire thread)

[corneileous]

Let us all bow down to corneieous. He knows more about us and how we use our trucks than we do.

Oh, hush up Trump hater. I wasn’t even talking to you.

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[rvance]

I’m pretty sure you’re referring to me so if you’re not, I apologize but if ya are, I never ran those BFG’s at 65 psi. The most I ran them up to was 55, them immediately down to 50 for awhile because that was the lesser of the 55 preferred with 50 being the minimum.

And it wasn’t a tire dealer who told me to do that; it was a representative from BFG.

But just to carry this on, are you really telling me it woulda been ok to run a LT 8-ply at 39psi?? Really? Did I really step on your toes that hard to recommend such an unsafe thing?Even I myself have enough common sense to know that wasn’t a smart thing to do.

At 39 they were actually fairly smooth but they felt really spongy. They still right away were not running as smooth as the GoodYears that I had just taken off but, not bad. Over the next couple of months when we started to transition outta late winter to spring and early summer was when they were really feeling like sponges once the weather warmed up. Even under fairly somewhat hard braking, you could almost hear a faint howling of the front tires. Steering and hard cornering felt a lot looser as well. Oh, and tire pressures climbed significantly from 39 cold to 45, 46 pounds so I know they were running just a little warm, too.

Then I decided to call up BFG- 50 was just too damn much for a practically empty truck but long story short, before I decided to get rid of the damn things for some much better tires, 47 in the front and about 43,44 in the back was what felt like the best compromise I was gonna find between a somewhat smooth ride and decent handling, cornering, braking and accelerating.


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In the Regular Cab I ran them at 40 psi. They ran cool and comfortable for 15k miles before I had a misguided urge to change to Michelin. They weren't spongy on my truck, especially compared to the OEMs. They were a little bit firmer handling than the Michelins. If I can afford it the next time I need tires I will buy the KO2s in a D rating. I was planning on towing the full 7200 pounds when I bought the E rated tires. Then decided that I was too old to fool with a black water tank and the other frustrations that come with a travel trailer. We haul our trike over the Interstate to good riding places and park the truck and trailer and ride ride ride.
Have a fantastic day!

 

[ErnieD]

Haha, could you define "a little" and "a lot"? [emoji3] I'm not disagreeing with you on the statement, just very subjective limits.

I wouldn't really consider pulling heavy 20-ish times a year often, but about 20% of my miles have been pulling so guess maybe I do?..

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In my experience the metric you’re looking for isn’t subjective if you’re being specific to a engine. Example, Cummins 6.7 has a recommended load % of least 30% min or the engine will soot load. So using that % as a reference point for a 3/4 or one ton pick up, is as simple as translating it to vehicle time. Example, in a month worth of trip time, if your marked 100 of travel, and 30 or more miles were hauling or towing, then the truck is being used in a work style application. Therefore one could argue that in that scenario you would gain from going to a LT higher load range tire. In my example, of the 18k plus miles I’ve logged on my Ram 1500, 4700 of those have been marked at trailer miles. I’m approaching 27%.

I also went to a Les Schwab open country 295/60R20 LT load range E tire. I run standard air pressure, when towing a heavier hybrid trailer, I run 50 PSI.

 

[ErnieD]

Not sure what that has to do with asking about tires and what people are doing for them, but ok I'll bite.

Why? Price was right, my ford was on its last leg at 180k before needing major repairs, and no dealers with 100+mi had a 3.92 on their lot (I looked).

Tow rating: Max of 8213lbs according to my build sheet. When I purchased the truck, our trailer was 62-6300lbs loaded.. I got a new truck, so wife wanted new camper (after having the other one for about a year and a half)

Would 3.92 pull better, yeah that is what they are made for. am I going to drop $2500-3000 for new gears, nah I'm good. The truck has more than enough get up and go with the 8 speed for my needs. If I were to ever go to a bigger/heavier camper, I'd be upgrading to a 3/4 ton.

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I got the same truck under arguably the same circumstances. At the time it towed my off-road pop up (4400GVWR) perfectly. I’ve since sold it and am awaiting delivery of a hybrid that has a 7200 GVWR. It will do for now. I called in the 3.21 to 3.92 gear swap and I’m not willing to budge. I have a 4X4 and would cost nearly 5K. My truck is a year old, and I’ll just pay it down and trade up when the time is right,

 

[Elkman]

Load range is far to wide to speak about in general. The E rated tires put on at the factory were rated at 3095 lbs and I replaced them for E rated tires rated at 3750 lbs or a difference of 1300 lbs of payload capacity at the rear axle. "10 ply" tires often have fewer than 10 plies but the manufacturer refers to them as "10-ply rated".

I started putting Goodyear Wranglers on my light trucks and jeeps in the 1980's and they were the best for traction on anything from sand and snow to dirt and rocky trails. I have also seen at least 3 major changes to the Wrangler tires over the years and no name change to indicate it was a different tire with different performance characteristics, some good and some not so good.

All my 4WD trucks and SUV's have had 4.10 gears except for one with a V-8 diesel that had 3.73 gears. 3.21 gears are what I would expect on a station wagon that stayed on the pavement and was never used to tow a heavy trailer.

 

[JayLeonard]

Just ditched the SRAs on the rear of my truck for a pair of Cooper Discoverer H/T plus. One of the SRAs had only 500 miles on it (replaced under road hazard) and that's under the bed as a spare.
I'll replace the fronts with the same when I head north next summer with the TT.
I'll buy them from my son and have him do an alignment at that time. Alignments are one of his specialties.

 

[Philip clopez]

Falken is a good all-terrain tire for towing because of its ruggedness. It can handle different weather, especially the hot summer. The heat-diffusing technology helps dissipate heat away from the tire. If it didn’t have this feature, I would suffer from flat or melted rubber on hot concrete during summer.

 

[Mister Luck]

Which ever gets you the best load rating and that will be sidewall strength not low profile tires.
When properly inflated a tire is your first suspension component.