Buying rear tires only on a dually

jwillvin

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Hi guys,

The tires that are on my truck now are still good but I am wanting to switch to something a little more aggressive. I am looking at the Firestone Destination Mt. I'm going to be purchasing a truck camper to put on the back of my truck pretty much full time. I have another smaller car as my daily driver and am trying to outfit the truck as a camping rig. It's a 93 F350 dually and I would like to know if I should purchase all six tires or can I just do the 4 in the rear? I just bought the truck recently and right now according to the previous owner the tires on there are highway tires all six of them. My truck is 2wd and I prefer to camp off pavement. Not necessarily "off road" but I frequent a few spots next to lakes and rivers. The campers I'm looking at weigh in dry at 2500-3000lbs so I'm sure I'll have closer to 3000 to 3500 lbs when loaded. Any experiences with these tires? Should I go with 4 or 6?

Thanks
 

snicklas

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You may want to check on the load ratings on the Destinations. I think they are a lighter duty tire. I have Firestone Transforce A\T's on my Excursion and really like them. They have good traction and a good load rating. I have 60k+ miles on them and they still have life left. I don't normally leave the road either, but when I have been they have not left me stuck, and do very well in the snow.
 

icanfixall

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No matter what tire you buy just make sure its an E rating tire. Or maybe a higher rated tire too. I think D rated tires are a little soft for the load you want to carry so avoid them.
 

LCAM-01XA

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Should I go with 4 or 6?
To me the winning combination for most any truck is highway-rib tires on the non-drive axles and traction tires on the drive axles. Take a good look at a concrete pumper truck next time you drive by one, you'll notice it has traction tires only on the 3 axles that are powered by the engine (front one and two of the rears), all others will have highway-like tires on them regardless of whether they are steerable axles or not. Same principle applies to our trucks as well, on a non-power front axle (2wd ruck) just use highway tires for longer life, better MPG, and quiet operation. Running A/T steer tires on a 2wd is okay still if you often run into lousy weather. M/Ts is just gonna be a waste tho. On my own dually till recently I had traction drivers and highway steers, the only times I wish I had A/T steers was during quick stops on slush where my highway-rib tires just locked up and slid easy, on packed snow and ice tho they stopped just fine, and running into standing water was hardly noticeable. If your dually has good rear tires, and some sort of traction device inside the axle (locker, posi, whatever, just not simple open diff) with a 3000lbs camper you'll be amazed at the places you can go - I routinely carry a bag of spare lenses for the marker lights as I haven't had a camping trip where I didn't lose at least one to low-hanging branches. And I don't consider parking at a camp ground camping, if a coach bus Class-A can make it in and out then it's no place I wanna be.

So just do the 4 rears in traction variety for now, it will be more than sufficient for what you wanna do. Later on if you ever do 4x4 swap you can add traction tires to the front also. In case you didn't know, Dog Catcher's truck is 4x4 dually, he can make full use of traction tires on the steer axle. So can I actually, which is why I dumped the highway-rib steers in favor of some A/Ts. But that's a recent development, while 2wd I did just fine with highway steers and A/T rears, and took my dually many places where technically speaking it didn't belong :D

Also, do save your highway tires if they are in good shape, and carry two of them as spares on camping trips. My logic is that when one rear lets go if you don't catch it on time it can also take the one next to it along for the ride, when that happens what good is just one spare wheel? I always carry two and never had to use both of them (seems like I always puncture steer tires), but once the other truck had two flats in a row so I had to give it both my spares to run on the rear axle - looked funny as heck with outer dual wheels on a SRW axle, but got us back to civilization no problem.
 

crashnzuk

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I agree, if going with M/Ts on a 2wd just do the rear. If you need a more all season-ish tire up front to handle weather type stuff go that route. M/Ts on a non-driven steer axle is a waste unless you are gonna be in really slick snotty places and want at least some directional control.
Travis..
 

purg113

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- I routinely carry a bag of spare lenses for the marker lights as I haven't had a camping trip where I didn't lose at least one to low-hanging branches. And I don't consider parking at a camp ground camping, if a coach bus Class-A can make it in and out then it's no place I wanna be.

well your options just got smaller.:rotflmao
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za63ltkMGGE
 

Andertusa

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I routinely carry a bag of spare lenses for the marker lights as I haven't had a camping trip where I didn't lose at least one to low-hanging branches. And I don't consider parking at a camp ground camping, if a coach bus Class-A can make it in and out then it's no place I wanna be.


If you keep taking out your clearance lights, you might be better off to invest in some 'armoured' clearance lights like: http://http://www.grote.com/product.php?product_number=46892

-OR-

http://http://www.grote.com/product.php?product_number=46292





To the OP: Generally, as long as you aren't mixing tires on a 4x4 it's cool, though as others have said, carefully observe the load ratings of whatever tire you choose, as many-if not most or all of the tires designed to theoretically be put on a dually have two COMPLETELY different load ranges for use as a single, and another set for use as a dually. I might be wrong, but I think it's because of sidewall flex, too much load while in a dually setting and the tires can flex against eachother.
 

LCAM-01XA

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Oh, but my statement is still valid - if he's in the lake then I want no part of it. Nevermind I wanted no part of floating my truck to begin with :D But IIRC this is the small one, there is another one that is a full-blown coach bus, carries passengers too.

If you keep taking out your clearance lights, you might be better off to invest in some 'armoured' clearance lights
Yeah, I seen those on dump and logging trucks usually, and I agree they will work great for my purposes. Too many irons in the fire lately tho, hopefully I'll manage to sneak them in the next batch of camper upgrades this spring. Thanks for the links!

Btw you can actually mix highway and traction tires on a 4x4, for a while I ran 265/75 highway steers and 235/85 aggressive A/T drivers with no ill effects. Gotta have the right sizes tho, and not many will match up like that.
 
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Andertusa

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Btw you can actually mix highway and traction tires on a 4x4, for a while I ran 265/75 highway steers and 235/85 aggressive A/T drivers with no ill effects. Gotta have the right sizes tho, and not many will match up like that.



I meant the whole different sizes thing, the other is fine. Though in a 4x4, I'm not too sure running different brands is a good idea, many of the brands have variation in the size of 'sizes'. On e brand being potentially bigger than another in the exact same size. If I was mixing different styles( steer/drives) I'd likely stay in the same brand if-only for the ideology that if it's from the same brand, the same size should be the same.


On the clearance light thing, also check out Peterson, Truck-Lite, Bargman, Wesbar and as many as you can, might find a better-suted choice for the same or less. I KNOW the companies at-least USED-TO make 'budget' armoured lights that had a formed steel plate guard that wrapped around the top and bottom, and used a cheaper style light assembly.

http://http://www.pmlights.com/

http://http://www.truck-lite.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/TopCategoriesDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001

http://http://www.whelen.com/auto/index.php

http://http://www.easternmarine.com/Amber-Marker-Truck-Trailer-Lights/


https://www.etrailer.com/dept-pg-Trailer_Lights-sf-Clearance_Lights.aspx
 

jwillvin

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Thanks for the replies! I'm going to keep whats on the front for now as they still have a lot of rubber left and will check to see if the Firestone destinations are rated E. If they are rated E then I should have no worries with them flexing and rubbing correct? Also I have the D5 rear axle which I looked up as the 4.10 limited slip. How do I know if I have anything other than a simple open differential?

Thanks
 

jwillvin

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Just got off the phone with the local Firestone shop and they are going to order me 4 of the destination Mt's load rating E and install them next week. I also told them to keep the best two of the old ones for me to keep as spares. Thanks guys!
 

tanman_2006

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I run 235/85 mud tires in the rear and 265/75 at's up front on my 93 dually. My 00 has 245/75 mud tires in the rear and 215/85 ht's up front, came w/ 215/85 ht's all around but I had 4 245/75 mt's and threw them on.

I typically only buy tires for one axle at a time. There is nothing wrong with different tread patterns between front and rear especially on a 2wd, heck if you want you can even go bigger on the rear of a 2wd and not worry about the fronts until they wear out.

Keep the old rears you take off for fronts to save $, that should get you by for bout 100k miles if they are in good condition.

source unknown
 

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