Thoughts on SKINNY TIRES VS THICK TIRES

I don't know about New England sand, but it's common practice from Delaware to North Carolina to air down when driving on the beach.

 

If you aren't airing down just before hitting the trail, beach, or mud you aren't doing it right.

Airing down isn't just for traction either. If you catch a mystery rock your tire is about 10x less likely to rip or puncture at 12 PSI than it would be at 35 PSI.

 

Well here you have it. i don't think this is about NE vs NC sand. It's about letting air out of narrow tires and a blanket statement about airing down tires for beaches is not what I had in mind. I apologize for being repetitive but; airing down a normal or factory or even larger tire to increase flotation makes sense to me. But ALL of my posts are with OP in mind and it's impractical to buy a specifically narrow tire and air it down and expect wide tire performance, not only on the beach but after. You give up way too much. If you frequent beaches, go with at least OEM tires. Physics be damned, it's not practical to expect much flotation with narrow tires without a lot of compromises.

 

Skinnies in this case are only 255's. Going from stock 265's to 255's isn't going to effect your flotation as much as people try to say. Aired down your actual contact patch between the two will be under 5% difference IIRC.

Now, compare 285's or 315's with 255's and you have a different conversation. Then you will be talking a large different in flotation. Then I can see that point of view.

 

You are talking out of both sides of your mouth and your statements taken as they are are absolutely false !

Airing down a narrow tire and expecting it to have better flotation then a wide tire, aired down or not, is BS as a general statement. You said " And you again ignore the fact that narrow tires actually have more floatation and a wider contact patch than wide tires aired down because the narrower tires gain contact surface in-line with the tread more so rather than just bulging out at the sides." are we talking about both aired down, only one and we don't even know the aspect ratio of each, the overal diameter, the rim size and width and side wall construction and just two general tires. If you go with a wider tire on the same rim, maybe your statement might have some merit as far as bulge is concerned but going from 235 to 315 means or should mean a rim change. Even if you just look at the tires OP has in mind....the effect of rim width has enough to do with it, you could be right or wrong. In this entire discussion, you have mixed tires with different overall diameters and aspect ratios and to make those general statements shows either ignorance or lack of command of the English language.

I own a tractor and have run heavy equipment including dozers and excavators and dump trucks. The trucks have high aspect tires because of load carrying, not floatation which they do not need on front They have excellent directional stability but not cornering traction and in the rear where more traction and load carrying is required. THEY RUN Dual tires and multiple axles to give traction and more load carrying and floatation. IN THE SAME WAY YOU NEED WIDER TIRES on cars and small trucks. So don't use this narrow tire comparison on heavy equipment...you are now waaay out of your league.

 

i went with 33x10.50xr15 km2s on my rig, i honestly love the look and performance,

 

I guess you don't get that matching rims to tire size affects tire bulge during deflation and in some tires will encourage longer contact along the tread. I repeat what you said.... just to say narrow tires have more flotation then wider tires by letting enough air out of them, would stand the world on it's ear. Am out of here.

 

wut...

 

x2

Well said.

 

What has made it sad...is you pretending that narrow tires on heavy equipment are for floatation ? That is sad !

 

Those tires are meant to say up on top of the snow pack. Skinny tires would tend to cut into the snow which is good on pavement and not so good for where that truck is on the picture.

 

You said traction.....narrow tires have very poor traction because of their lack of flotation and floatation aids traction along with tread design. This lack of floatation going on front works in their favor by giving it directional stability like the small tires on a two wheel drive tractor. They can slide while braking like the runners on skis, they sink and build up material on either side giving it directional stability and can still turn a heavy vehicle. If they had too much floatation, they would not build up material.....which is fine for 4 wd where traction for turning is derived from the transaxle.
But of course, my heavy equipment may be different then yours..yours seems to defy physics.

 

Like all 4 wd trucks. The only way a 2 wd truck can survive is with lots of flotation on the drive wheels and skis attached to the fronts. Have seen old vehicles do this successfully.

 

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And I'm out. Let the battle begin.

 

Skinny on the front, fat in the back...best of both worlds.

 

Things in here seem to have escalated quickly! OP, sounds like you want the tall skinnies. They're a little better on the mpg because of the width having a little less drag.

Regarding the loss of power, what your truck struggles with while accelerating is the MoI of the wheels. If you're dealing with tires about the same outer diameter you can compare weight and it'll be pretty close to the relationship between the MoI's, so lighter is better. Weight further away from the hub is bad. A 37 that weighs the same as a 33 would still be a lot worse even if you got the final gear ratio the same because of the MoI.



I'll throw in my 2 cents for the tire traction/selection debate as well. I run a wide tire (33x12.5) on my truck. This is primarily because the terrain in my area is muskeg-y requiring some float. What I'm seeing here is people that are not separating traction from flotation. I'll give you my take on it..

In deep sand or deep mud or deep snow flotation (from larger contact patch) is very important. Your contact patch can be increased by going with a bigger diameter tire, selecting a wider tire, or airing down. Bigger contact patch gives less pressure on the driving surface for more float, making it less likely that you'll sink down to the diffs. If your vehicle sinks to the diffs or skids, etc (any surface other than drive wheels), some of the normal force from your truck will be applied to those parts of your vehicle and not your tires. That's bad because (normal force * coefficient of friction) on your tires is what you need to go forward.

In a situation where you have a layer of soft driving surface not too thick that's on top of a better driving surface, more pressure is better. Shorter/narrower/more inflated tires gets you more pressure on the ground. This applies to snow on a road or a little bit of mud on top of some rock, etc. The goal is to easily cut through the soft stuff and get some good pressure on the better ground underneath

On solid tractive surfaces (rock or asphalt) contact patch doesn't matter much compared to the actual compound of the tire.

On semi-solid surfaces like gravel, the earlier comment about longer tread engagement being better than sidewall bulging is correct if you hold all else equal (but it's tough to hold all else equal). There's a lot more variables in this terrain that make it a lot more debatable, but I'd say your actual tread pattern is your most important factor.

 

You're the one who brought up heavy equipment. You are conflating what 2 wd dump trucks or heavy equipment 2 wd tractors and what they do for traction vs. a light 4 wd Tacoma. You're a moving target my good man.

"Everyone who drives trucks in skinny tires in the winter" ....where did you get the idea that very many do ? ? I know of NO one who has separate winter tires that drops more then one size in tire from OEM. We had 150 inches of snow last year so we had plenty of practice. Some here do it for the ease of using chains and because winter treads are deeper and actual tire size for clearance is similar. Some tire sellers recommend one size down...no more! YOU say skinny tires have better floation and also sink better and have better traction and....ha, ha, what ever else you can make up. Keep your cookie cutters ! It's better to have OEM size "snow tires" then any "skinny " tires in winter.
And you laugh at me for generalizing. I am sure you're a nice guy ..but please be funny or cordial. I'll try too.

 

Excellent summary....tread design trumps a lot of things and makes the best size tires usless or the less then adaquate somewhat useful. Off roading, unlike traveling on road, has so many traction variations that unless you know where you are going for sure, and are willing to a alter your vehicle, it's best not to vary too much for the basics.

 

Well everyone can zip up their pants now that both of you are agreed.