I have Cooper discoverer AT/3 in LT265/70/17 right now. 2wd with 4x4 length coilovers up front and 3" rear blocks. See pic below.

Anyway, here's where my question starts, these tires have just never balanced right and the tire shop has tried again and again. Cooper is going to warranty these tires for 75% of my original cost. Pretty good since I've had them over a year and put probably 20+ thousand on them. They're down to 12/32nd from 17/32nd new.

Anyway, I don't think an LT tire is for me or my truck. It's just added weight and something I do not need. Since P metrics are a bit cheaper than LT's I can pretty much swap for a set of them for free.

As seen below, the 265/70/17s look good on the truck. However, to get a little mpg back, would it look terrible to put on 235/75/17 or a 255/70/17? I could always just go with P265/70/17 if those smaller sizes would look bad. They're 10lbs lighter per tire than the LT's

Id love some opinions. Going to do this Monday. Ps that 90's dodge 2500 4x4 look doesn't really bother me.

 

I'd stick with the 265's and get your speedo/odo corrected. A programmer with custom tunes would have other benefits too. It's the lift that's killing your mileage, not the tires.

 

Thanks! I'll look into that.

Just curious, how is the lift killing the mpgs more than the tires? The tires I have are probably 20 lbs more per tire than my OEM size and are just shy of 2" larger in diameter and definitely a bit wider. I always figured it wasn't the lift itself that changed the mpgs, it was the larger tires that are usually added? I understand lifting the truck will cause more drag, but I suppose it seems the larger heavier tires would be more of an issue than that.

I'm currently getting about 18 highway. With the oem tire size I could get to 21 during the summer months.

 

Because of the very small difference in mileage between a 2WD and 4x4, and the 4x4s lugging around another 400 pounds of weight, I don't think your truck sitting like a 4x4 is hurting mileage much at all. And I don't think small tires like that are either. They both are hurting you a little bit, but ordinarily I'd say the lift is maybe where 1 MPG went and I'd blame the other 2 on tires. But if those tires are that much lighter than stock, it's hard to not point at the lift a little more.

It's your call, but I certainly wouldn't put any smaller of a tire on the truck. 235s would look pretty goofy IMO considering that 255/65/17 is stock (that's what mine came with anyway) and those are small/narrow enough. Obviously I'm not hyper-miling in my truck, but I'd keep that size tire and give up the slight MPG drop.

 

235's were standard on his truck, because it's a 2wd standard cab with a V-6.

 

Damn the fuel mileage....285x70x17's and full speed ahead!!!

 

The 2wd came with either 235/70/17 or 255/65/17. 4wd came with 235/75/17 or 255/70/17.

Anyway, the 235s I mentioned would have come stock on a 4x4 but would still be bigger than my stock tire.

I think I may just try to find some 245/75/17s. Just about the same hight as the 265s I have now and not quite as wide.

 

Thanks man. And I'm not really THAT concerned with mpgs. Haha, I do drive a truck anyway. I just didn't want it to look stupid. I guess if everyone thinks a stock 4x4 sized tire would look ridiculous, on slightly lifted 2wd, Id probably end up hating to look at it at some point too.

Also, just to clear things up, I meant my current tires, LT265/70/17 (31.7" tire), are about 20 lbs heavier than my oe size. Also, the size I was talking about is a 235/75/17 (31" tire) It's an oe 4x4 tire size. My actual oe size is 235/70/17 (30" tire")

 

To be fair, I think stock 4x4s with the smallest available tire DO look kinda goofy They're supposed to look goofy so Ford can keep us from buying the base model trucks that we did and get us to buy a King Ranch haha. Your truck sits about like my 2WD did when it had a 2" level and 2" blocks, and I had 275/60/20 (33x10.8") tires. Stock 20" size of 275/55/20 would've looked good. So your current 31.5 inchers look perfectly fine, and that's what I'd stick with.

Oops, I read that wrong. I was wondering how a bigger tire weighed less

 

Thanks for all the opinions and insight. I'm going to stick with the same 265/70/17 size.

Weirdly enough, the LT load C that are on there now have a 2470 lb load capacity and the p metrics in the same size have a 2679 lb load capacity. They must be an XL? Doesn't make a lot of sense why the LT C's have a lower capacity though. Both are Cooper Discoverer AT/3.

I'm shedding 40 lbs going from LT C to P metric, so that's cool.

 

Yes! Good choice! As far as the load ranges and weights, that seems odd.

 

Strange - I did a little digging with other brands, 2470 is correct for a LR C at 50 psi but I'm finding standard load P's at either 2305 or 2679 at 44 psi.

 

Weird that you're finding two different load capacities on that tire. The tire shop confirmed the Cooper AT/3 p metric in the 265/70/17 is the extra load. I do believe the xl usually has a slightly higher capacity than a standard p metric. Maybe the others you were comparing were not xl's?

Regardless, p metrics will obviosuly be fine on my truck. Just doesn't make sense if the LT C has a lower capacity. Ha

 

Believe it or not, they were SL (standard load).

 

Gotcha. Here's an image of the specs of the P metric, Load C and Load E. In that order, for others to see. These are all 265/70/17 Discoverer AT/3's. The load index is p-115, 6ply-112, 10ply-121. If that means anything, the p metrics load index is higher than the LT c.