Advantage to going 19.5"

[AndyL]

G'day all,

Probably not the place to ask, but I'll ask anyway...

Trying to finally settle the new tires for the C3500 dually. Tires I want are backordered in the 235/85/16s until roughly august...

Friend asked me why I don't upgrade to 19.5" wheels - I know these are what they use on the >1ton trucks (gm 45/5500 and F450/550s), is there a good reason to upgrade other than getting shorter sidewalls? Tire options look to be much more limited; but I'm guessing they're likely to last a hell of a lot longer knowing commercial tires...

Any thoughts?

[SKR]

That's what you get, a ridiculous amount of miles out of them and a higher weight rating. The trouble is that there's not a whole fuck of a lot of options. And I bet there's even fewer options considering it's a C3500 and not a K3500. You probably don't have a lot of room in the fenders for tall tires.

I'm almost positive though that I've seen 22.5" wheels in magazines machined down to 22" to increase the options for tires, while keeping the looks that big wheels give. But that probably doesn't help you out much either, because you're still limited with the size of tire you can put on a two wheel drive truck.

[AndyL]

Fenders are the same C/K for this year - tons of room; and one of the issues I'm trying to deal with - highway RPMs are a bit higher than I'd like (3500) so already planning to go to a taller tire (was eyeballing 235/85/16's to get closer to what I'd like to see)

Wouldn't be going to a 22/24" alcoa by any means; but the 19.5 also means getting into those commercial tires, and maybe commercial retreads on the rear - which in the long run, with the km's I typically run, ain't such a bad thing...

[SKR]

Originally posted by AndyL
Fenders are the same C/K for this year - tons of room; and one of the issues I'm trying to deal with - highway RPMs are a bit higher than I'd like (3500) so already planning to go to a taller tire (was eyeballing 235/85/16's to get closer to what I'd like to see)

Wouldn't be going to a 22/24" alcoa by any means; but the 19.5 also means getting into those commercial tires, and maybe commercial retreads on the rear - which in the long run, with the km's I typically run, ain't such a bad thing...

I know the fenders are the same, they're just closer to the ground so you'd have to put more tire in them than if you had the ground clearance that a four wheel drive would give you.

[AndyL]

19.5's don't mean tire OD necessarily needs to be increased, will be stepping up a notch to get highway RPM down - but not stepping up to a 70/80 profile to get ridiculous.