My New 18” Winter Wheels – 02/14/2023

I explain in the video why I phased out my 17”, LT-235/80-R-17 Firestone Winterforce-LT, & why I got these 18”, LT-275/70-R-18 Bridgestone Blizzak LT’s instead.

Just to recap:

A lot of this is largely under the category of “I didn’t know, what I didn’t know”.

As I mention in the video, the LT-235/80-R-17 is more of a dually size, and because of this, the load rating of the individual tire is lower; this is a non-issue for dually’s as there are four of these such tires on one axle. The LT-275/70-R-18 however has the higher load rating being better suited for the single-rear-wheel applications; this explains why this size is automatically selected for the 2500’s if one asks for a higher weight rating on it, & why this size is just standard on the SRW 3500’s.

The final thing worth mentioning is how significantly different the diameter difference is between the LT-235/80-R-17 & the LT-275/70-R-18; It’s to the point that I even had to get a separate winter spare.

Here is the link I mentioned in this video to the video that elaborates on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2obr21Bnj8

It would be a non-issue if the two different sizes could be programmed easily into the ECU, and by that, I mean have the two different sizes already in the menu and just switch between the two.

I just wasn’t happy with the Firestone Winterforce LT’s, cobble that together with the fact that there was no real selection [besides the Firestone Winterforce LT’s] for the LT-235/80-R-17 size, I thought, well, if I’m going to have to buy snow tires again (especially when I really didn’t want to), I’ll just go with the size it call for & the other benefits of going with the size it calls for as I mention in the video. There was A LOT more selection in terms of snow tires for the LT-275/70-R-18 size.

To view this video on my You Tube Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAsBY_6ophI