Need advice on tire size. What are the negatives of going smaller?

[Splenda]

If you only drive on road, there are no negatives except for looks.

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[Jaxmax]

I went with the 255/80/ 17 AT4 and love them they are 33.3” tall compared to stock 32.5, I run a Mojave go off roading and surf fish driving on beaches. They a little bit lighter but a better tire then the AT3 and have a 60,000 warranty . Your biggest problem is you have a mud tire instead of a AT tire for your needs, my Original tires got noisy around 45,000 and I wanted to go skinny. The steering has changed a lot to a easier feel, I saw no difference in the woods and I think they are better on the beach , by being narrower they are not pushing as wide of little wall of sand in front when driving. They will be better in snow in a couple months too!..Jack
Ps: I know everyone says wider is better but since 1976 I have been running the beaches with everything from a CJ-2A on 11x15 , Scrambler, Tahoe’s, Suburban, Chevy pickups , even a 1984 small Wagoneer , my Mojave had widest tires of them all and is the only truck I got stuck with and that was at low pressure , ran my Suburban for eight years 25psi front, 20psi rear and never a worry , enjoyed driving around stuck trucks and pulling them out

 

[Jaxmax]

Side by side with my Falkens, no regrets!….Jack

 

[Afternoon Spray]

I went with the 255/80/ 17 AT4 and love them they are 33.3” tall compared to stock 28.5. I run a Mojave go off roading and surf fish driving on beaches. They a little bit lighter but a better tire then the AT3 and have a 60,000 warranty . Your biggest problem is you have a mud tire instead of a AT tire for your needs, my Original tires got noisy around 45,000 and I wanted to go skinny. The steering has changed a lot to a easier feel, I saw no difference in the woods and I think they are better on the beach , by being narrower they are not pushing as wide of little wall of sand in front when driving. They will be better in snow in a couple months too!..Jack
Ps: I know everyone says wider is better but since 1976 I have been running the beaches with everything from a CJ-2A on 11x15 , Scrambler, Tahoe’s, Suburban, Chevy pickups , even a 1984 small Wagoneer , my Mojave had widest tires of them all and is the only truck I got stuck with and that was at low pressure , ran my Suburban for eight years 25psi front, 20psi rear and never a worry , enjoyed driving around stuck trucks and pulling them out

Love the hydro blue!

 

[Jaxmax]

Love the hydro blue!

Everyone knows the good looking lucky guys drive Hydro Blue Mojaves, the rest are just wanna bees, shame it is gone as a color now but ours will go up in value now!…Jack

 

[Zachanadandy]

I have a 2024 Rubicon MT that came with the 285/70/17 Falken M/T. The nicest thing I can say about them is that they have been fine, but I certainly haven't loved them. Originally I thought, I'll wait until they wear down and then look into upgrading so I don't waste money. Well, I'm heading into my second winter with them in the PNW and they have been fishtailing like crazy with any amount of rain on an incline. I'm losing traction just trying to maintain 35MPH-40MPH on an uphill. I've lived up here my whole life and have never had a tire perform this bad in the rain.

This leads me to my question. I have been shopping stock size, but also have been considering shedding some additional weight by going smaller (skinnier). I've been looking at either 275/70/17s or 255/75/17s. This would cut about 0.3"-0.6" from the actual diameter depending on the tire, but would make them skinnier (my understanding is skinnier performs better in the rain). Also, depending on the brand I could shave like 15-20lb per tire.

My main question is, what negatives would there possibly be going with these sizes (other than appearance and the hit to my ego)?

Thanks all.

What tire pressure do you run? I can't get the 37" MTs to break traction in the rain unless I floor it from a stop, but I only run 28 psi cold.

 

[Afternoon Spray]

What tire pressure do you run? I can't get the 37" MTs to break traction in the rain unless I floor it from a stop, but I only run 28 psi cold.

I've always ran it at the recommended 37 PSI

 

[Zachanadandy]

I've always ran it at the recommended 37 PSI

Not arguing against me tires, but trying them at 32-33psi is free and could potentially help a lot.

 

[Swegian]

I too just got 35×11.5-17 AT4's.

Love em!

I was sliding around when the rain first started here in the PNW. Breaking the rear end loose at 60 on I-5 just speeding up to pass was strike one. Almost sliding off a hairpin turn was second and last straw. Live up in Bellingham but drive all over the state.

Id run the summer with my (replaced with same tires on my 21 Rubi JLU) Id put the same tires on it AT4s last year.

My stock Falkin MT ko1s had 65k with 50% tread left but got tired of the howling in my jlu with the 1-touch top.

I put the 35"12.5x20 grapplers back in the garage till spring at least. They came with the Gladiator we purchased used early summer.

 

[Janster]

Granted, this is older informaiton…but…. My experience with MT tires on pavement…… is they absolutely suck on wet or damp pavement.

I don’t think there’s anything you can do, other than buying different tires. Lowering your air pressure might help…but probably not enough.

Just make sure you get some sort of A/T tire. However, make note…nothing is going to be perfect. You have a truck…in 2WD, with virtually no weight on the wheels, and wet pavement?? Yea….. it can & still can fishtail pending the situation.

I have a 24 Mojave X with the Falkens. I’ve been impressed with them in all conditions. However - when the roads are wet, , I always put it in Auto4WD.
I have one intersection that’s on an incline and you need to ‘thread the needle’ to make a left turn. If I don’t use Auto4WD, I’ll be stuck in the middle of the intersection spinning my tires. Your brain doesn’t process taking your foot OFF the gas to get traction….while cars are coming at you.

 

[Sandman 4x4]

Stock is load C. I just think they are more geared toward off road. I wish I would've asked the dealer to swap them to the A/Ts. And the second thing is that they're heavy as all hell. 62 lb per tire so even with my 4.10 gearing they are constantly lugging up the hills I'm driving in the PNW. Add a little bit of water and its just not fun.

Yea I also hate rainy roads, especially when it’s just started and the fine debris hasn’t been washed off yet and it’s very slimy. The best and only thing you can do to prevent that issue is narrow tires, what’s called pizza cutters, without MT rating, the best are the tires designed for icy roads with lots of voids and snipes in the tread. Micheline makes a great tire, just not in very many sizes. Here’s a 245/75-17, that’s a very good all around tire design for wet roads.

 

[NC_Overland]

You're right, there are some stock A/T options that reduce a good bit of weight, and I am considering that. But these two videos have convinced me that skinnier = better both for off-road and for wet road performance.


Plus, my last two camping trips have been flirting with the payload, if not a bit over, so shedding as much weight as possible is a benefit of going slightly smaller/skinnier. Some of these tires I could lose 80 lbs across the 4 tires + the spare.

Here is the breakdown of the tires I'm considering:
255/75R17 BFG KO3 Load C - 49 lbs (13 lb reduction)
255/75R17 BFG KO2 Load C - 47.1 lbs (14.9 lb reduction)
275/70R17 BFG KO3 Load E - 58 lbs (4 lb reduction)
275/70R17 BFG KO2 Load E - 55.4 lbs (6.6 lb reduction)
275/70R17 MT Baja Legend EXP Load E - 55 lb (7 lb reduction)
265/70R17 BFG KO3 Load C - 46 lb (16 lb reduction)
265/70R17 BFG KO2 Load C - 45.7 lb (16.3 lb reduction)
265/70R17 MT Baja Boss Load XL - 44 lbs (18 lb reduction)

Stock Size
285/70R17 MT Baja Boss Load STD- 48 lbs (14 lb reduction)
285/70R17 BFG KO3 Load C - 57 lbs (5 lb reduction)
285/70R17 BFG KO2 Load C - 50.3 lbs (11.7 lb reduction)

Going bigger
255/85R17 MT Baja Boss Load E - 64 lbs (2 lb increase)
255/80R17 Falken Wild Peak A/T4 Load E - 58.1 lbs (3.9lb reduction)

I'm not going to be crawling the most difficult obstacles so I'm not worried about the small hit to clearance. My finalists are here:

255/75R17 BFG KO3 Load C - 49 lbs (13 lb reduction)
265/70R17 BFG KO3 Load C - 46 lb (16 lb reduction)
265/70R17 Mickey Thompson Baja Boss Load XL - 44 lbs (18 lb reduction)
275/70R17 MT Baja Legend EXP Load E - 55 lb (7 lb reduction)
285/70R17 MT Baja Boss Load STD- 48 lbs (14 lb reduction)
255/85R17 MT Baja Boss Load E - 64 lbs (2 lb increase) [not practical for my use case but have heard great things if I wanted to go taller for looks/clearance]

Skinnier than stock won’t improve in either. Stock width can be better than wider tires in the rain and snow. You’ll lose some wet traction going to a narrower then stock tire size. All things being equal.

 

[RudeJeepin]

I had a set of the Falken MTs in 33x12.50 on my old CJ5 with a V8. The actually did decent on the roads, wet or dry. Better than several of the other mud tires I ran on it. I also ran 25psi or less, most of the time.

My Gladiator came with Falken AT3W in 285/75r17 and I ran them at 32psi cold, would of liked to try lower, but didn't want to deal with the TPMS warning light.
I took the BFG KO2 off the wife's Wrangler because they were just down right scarey in the wet once below about 50% tread. Put my Falkens on hers, because I went to 35s. The Falkens were at 40%plus or so and were way better traction in the wet.

Air pressure makes a difference, even on the pavement.

Spinning tires while accelerating or going up hill isn't hydro plaining. That would be more fishtailing or loosing traction.
Hydro Plaining would be when you hit a puddle at speeds and your tires actually float across the water and lose contact with the road surface. Speed comes into play here, along with voids in the tire tread to evacuate water.

 

[Afternoon Spray]

Skinnier than stock won’t improve in either. Stock width can be better than wider tires in the rain and snow. You’ll lose some wet traction going to a narrower then stock tire size. All things being equal.

Do you have data that shows that? Because I've seen a lot of pizza cutter threads here and on the jlforum, plus the two videos I linked showing the science that shows otherwise that 255 (whether that's 255/75/17, 255/80/17 or 255/85/17) will be better performance off road, in the mud, in the snow and in rainy conditions.

 

[NC_Overland]

Do you have data that shows that? Because I've seen a lot of pizza cutter threads here and on the jlforum, plus the two videos I linked showing the science that shows otherwise that 255 (whether that's 255/75/17, 255/80/17 or 255/85/17) will be better performance off road, in the mud, in the snow and in rainy conditions.

How would less of a contact patch increase traction? The stock tire size isn’t wide enough to cause the negative attributes of wider tires like hydroplaning or pulling on roads with ponding. It’s simple physics.

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