235/85/16 The Skinny

That is one of the lightest pizza cutters I've seen. What were you comparing it with?

 

It has been transformative, a completely different truck with the pizza cutter winter tires. We finally got some of the white stuff!

 

Oh good, lol. Honestly I was going by memory...and apparently misremembering what I had read. I thought I had seen guys saying theirs were at 40lbs?

 

which ones?

 

My Coopers come in at 51lbs.

 

Found 'em, 40 and 41lbs. Though, again, I was going by memory and was also doing the same research on other forums as I was here. Had a lot of info floating around in my head, read lots of posts about guys running their tires at 40psi, and I'm pretty sure I inadvertently got my info crossed in my head.

Rereading now and I feel pretty good about the weight on these, also found some feedback on other threads about the tires so I'm gonna place an order. Really wish I had the time to order a few weeks ago, we just got dumped on with snow up here and I could really use them...oh well.

 

I worry about ply-size / durability when you get to the lighter weight flavors.

 

On a cheap tire, yes.

Not so much of an issue on the higher end tires like BFG and others. Remember that just because it is a smaller lighter tire on our truck, it's still a larger tire on many vehicles running around the Middle East, parts of Asia, Africa, Australia. They drive those out in the nasty parts of the world. We've just gotten so used to overkill in America that we aren't comfortable unless we overkill on top of overkill. We often forget that a lot of time our overkill in one area comes with a trade off in another area. We aren't always getting more. We are just getting more in one area and less in another. Less responsiveness, less fuel economy, less flexibility, possibly even less performance and definitely less ride quality - All in order to have side walls that are stronger than the already nearly impenetrable sidewalls of the lighter tire.

 

Firestone Destination X/T are 39.9lbs in the 235/85R16 E load, those are the lightest 235s I've come across.

 

All of this is exactly why I was so reluctant to go for this size. In all of my searching over the last few weeks, I did find a few in this size and load range C, but they were either strictly highway tires, overly aggressive mud tires, or completely unknown brands from questionable sources.

I ran skinnies on my '04 Xterra, BFG AT KO2, 10 ply. That truck had a small suspension lift, stiffer torsion bars, upgraded steering linkage, and between the body and the RLC tire carrier rear bumper; also a whole lot more weight over the back end. Before I installed them, the truck had 31x10.5x15 bias ply mudders. I definitely noticed the new tires, and I was even more reluctant to go from C to E, as it was definitely overkill...but in the end I loved the pairing of truck and tire and I almost never even needed 4wd after installing them.

Obviously this isn't a fair comparison, either the BFG to Sumitomo, or the Xterra to the Tacoma...it's just a very long-winded way to say "yes, overkill abounds, 10 plies is too many but it's what's available so it's what we do".

 

My guess as to why so many skinny tall sidewall tires have stiff load range E sidewalls is to prevent collapse in lateral G and off camber situations. Could be totally wrong but most vehicles they fit aren't built to carry huge amounts of weight.

 

I thought they were are used for trailers so for that use I would think they do carry significant weight.

 

I too rocked a set of BFG ATKO's on a 2000 Xterra with a 1.5" Calmini PML.

 

Most tire shops will not mount LT tires on a trailer. Those of us that do that either take just the wheels to the shop and not say what they are for or use a small shop where some grasp of a foreign language is helpful.

 

Firestone destination xt is what i have and the lightest i could find, 39-40lbs they ride nice for being an E rated tire

 

I'm about ready to order some 235/85/r16 Cooper Discoverer AT3 LT.

My question is, how much can I expect reviews of tires in another size (265/75/16) to match the E Class skinnies? I'm concerned with driveability and stopping/wet road handling mostly, and the Coopers seem to come out ahead of other likely options (Falken Wildpeak/Firestone Destination/ Kumho Road Venture/ Hankook DynoPro) in the road test reviews, but I'm not sure if that's going to translate.

I'm still open to suggestions at this point but things are getting weird in the market right now and I want to buy this week if I can.

 

Contact patch is equal, possibly larger on the skinny. Long and narrow vs wide and short.

 

In don't think that is the case given equal air pressure and sidewall construction.

 

Ok, I have gathered that from a lot of reading and watching, but do you think a SL or P rated tire is fairly equivalent to the same model in an E load rating and skinny size?

 

Like you I wouldn't have believed it either except I saw Kai on Tinkerer's Adventures analyze it and the pizza cutters got a larger contact patch that more resembled a tracked vehicle like a caterpillar bulldozer or an M1 Abrams Tank. It was enough of a difference to be significant but barely. My own supposition is that it wold make the most difference in the sand when you need that longer grip pattern and you are running lower pressure. But then the Pizza Cutters also deformed more around a pole or simulated rock too. So it might be better on the rocks as well.