I would like to get some taller tires to gear down the truck a little bit. I want to do this to get better milage. All of the taller tires are also wider. For instance, with H2 tires (315/70-17) the tires are 34.4" tall, but 12.4" wide. The stock tires are 265/70-17 (31.6 tall, 10.4" wide). Going to the H2 tire would effectively drop my axle ratio from 3.73 to 3.43. However the wider tire would drag more, offsetting the milage gain of lower gears.

Does anyone make a taller tire that is not significnatly wider? Hoping to find something like 285/80-17 (35.0 tall & 11.2 wide).

 

Look at the B.F. Goodrich site.

 

It's very unlikely you would see much increase in economy from going to a taller tire. You are correct in looking for a narrower tire to help reduce rolling resistance, but the new higher overall profile of the truck would catch a proportionate amount more wind than when on the stock tires, offsetting any gains from reduced RPM's. Plus, look at the overall costs: 5 new brand-name load range E tires (don't even consider not having a matching height spare), say $150 each bare minimum = $750. Now assume you were to gain 1 full MPG, going from say 18MPG to 19MPG. Let's say you are paying $2.00 per gallon for diesel ( ). If you were to average 15,000 miles per year, on your stock tires it would cost you (15,000/18)*$2.00 = $1,666.67. Now on your new tires, it would cost you (15,000/19)*$2.00 = $1,578.95, for a yearly difference/savings of $87.72. At that rate, it would take you over 8 years to "pay" for the tires, in which time you would have amassed 120,000 (15,000*8) miles. I don't think your new tires would give you all of those 120,000 miles, so in reality they would never pay for themselves. Just my $0.02...

 

WOW that's DEEP

I think he may lost some money in just reading this

 

If only these new trucks had 16's.... The 255/85-16 is an awesome tire size IMHO. Plenty of width and nice height to fill the wheel wells and drop rpm's. Maybe someone will come out with some 255/80-17's.......

Closest I have seen is a 235/80 which is only slightly taller than stock, maybe a 1/4 inch. I may go with them anyway for the less rolling resistance when the stockers wear out.

 

I beleive Nitto Makes a 295/70 17 Terra Grappler, tread not too aggressive or too wimpy; I plan on running set of these as soon as I can.

 

I just recently installed a rev-tech front end leveling kit and 315/70/17 BFG/ats and my milege dropped about 1mpg so far, but is totally worth it because of the head turning looks. By the way their are hardly any other tires to choose from according to the web searches that i did and tobyw is right you will never recoup the cost with fuel saving, my tires ran $200 a peice and that is cost through my cousins dealership.

 

I really like my Nitto Terra Grapplers in 295/70/17s, effectively makes a 3.73 a 3.54 (like the cummins really struggles with this!)

They ride a lot better, have a higher weight rating than the stocker michelin AS' did, and look really great. My mileage seems to be about unchanged when adding the 5.5% back into my mileage, although I think part of my problem is I usually drive 70-75 on the freeway which is now 73-79 and I drive faster speeds without thinking about it, thus hurting mileage. I just need time to get in for the reflash for the speedo.