Advice on tire & wheels so I stop burning wheel bearings

On my 2016 access cab I’m currently running 285/75/16s. To much of your relief I’m already lifted 1.5” and can clear these tires thanks to aftermarket wheels and my cutting abilities. My problem is that between my tire and wheels it’s taking a beating on my front end. I do actually wheel my shit, not anything crazy like bouncing around but a good amount of blue trail/black trail rock crawling stuff so things get used. With that said wheel bearings typically last me a year and a half on average. I don’t know if it’s the weight of the setup or the offset/back spacing or more than likely a combination of both.


The general grabber atx weight 60lb. The wheels weight 24lb so that’s 83lb total.


Exact specs:

American Eagle 102 series //pt#1029-7866
Size :16x8 // Offset: -20 mm // Backspacing: 3.63"

What are your thoughts on this? I’m thinking about ditching this setup and getting pizza cutters.

If I get falken atw3 255/80/17 with FJ steelies id be looking at 74lb. A solid 10lb reduction. These have 14mm offset which I guess is a little better than my current wheels.

Alternatively the Tacoma 16” steelies have 30mm offset and with Yokohama m/t g003 255/85/16s I’d be looking at 75lb. Still a good reduction.

From what I’ve seen looking at specs factory wheels typically have positive offset. Are the wheel bearings designed around this and to be beefier for positive offset? Meaning, + offset loads the inner bearings more, where as - offset loads the outer more. I’ve never taken one apart but are the inner bearings bigger?

3rd plan could also be to not go pizza cutters and keep the current tires and switch the wheels to say SCS F5 16x8 0mm offset, 4.5” backspacing. In addition to 0 offset they offer a 4-5lb weight reduction which is something..

 

Are you replacing the wheel bearing with an OEM one?

 

Are you swapping them out with a prebuilt hub with the bearing already pressed in or replacing just the bearing?

They should last a lot longer than that. My buddy was having the same problem and eventually realized he was missing a seal or O ring that wasn’t part of the schematic and it was allowing water to contaminate the bearing.

 

not OEM. I’ve tried NSK, Moog, SKF, beck/arnley.

I’ve tried both pressing my own and buying prebuilts . But yes there is an o ring, the cv axle seal, and the seal that goes between the hub and the bearing.

 

Get Oem, I'm still running my factory wheel bearings with 80k miles on 35s/37s with -44mm of offset, heavy beadlocks. I had one bearing go bad, but it was because I fawked off a seal and the bearing rusted.