Question about tires

There are no dumb questions and you came to the right place.
Go to the top of page search bar and try "Tire size questions" or similar,
and sure to have been referenced previously.
Best of luck out there.

 

Never say it's dumb. The only dumb is a question never asked (Such as how high am I?) before proceeding into a 10 foot high bridge.

Your first number in tire size is how much rubber is on the ground. (Width I think...) then the second number refers to the sidewall height. the third should be the diameter of the wheel you are on.

What you do NOT want to do with a 18 wheeler is have say 17 wheels of one size and then the one too small. Causing the one next to it to carry the full load on that wheel until it fails. If you had both duals too small then you might create enough of additional wear inside the drive line somewhere.

If the tires were wrong you might find that the 5th wheel is not high enough or not low enough.

It's a fine engineering marvel that you have a 18 wheeler on all those tires working together. Whatever size all of them are. That is the size you buy.

Don't be swayed by larger or smaller tire size numbers with the equal reduction in cost etc. A few dollars saved will create a headache later.

Finally but not least, size is not the end all for truck tires. You need to look into weight capacity as well and the type of tread, tread depth and so on.

Always buy new. Never buy retreads or recaps (Most especially recaps...)

Im not your opponent with a club. It's a pretty major thing truck tires in general. I have never had a good tire fail. We are in winter, it;s a good time to be buying tires new even though it's about 5000 dollars for 10...

 

Don't mess around with sizing unless you've got a good reason, just run what's specc'd (and therefore what's already on) your truck. There's plenty to learn about tread types, tire wear, inflation, etc. The michelin advantage program has decent pricing but it also gives you some access to michelin's videos about tires which is a great place to start educating yourself about how tires work. You'll also get a price list so you can start getting over the sticker shock.

 

Also if you change the tire size beyond what the truck is spec'd with it will make your speedometer incorrect, this can be programmed with the new tire size to correct it. I would say leave them stock size unless your trying to get some more height available for a step/flat deck trailer or car hauler, then it might be worth it. Or you just want your truck to sit higher or lower for what ever reason.

 

Thought this thread was gonna be about the type of brand of the tire. Size ?..... I would keep it a popular size that is common. Why ? Because if you lose one on the road, hopefully they will have that particular popular size in stock and not an odd ball one.

 

Off topic but, who did you end up leasing your truck onto?

 

Call the dealer, whatever make it is, give them last 6 of your VIN, ask what size tires it should have.