Home Forums Gear Hunting Trucks and Four-Wheel Drives Mixing tires on a 4x4

Not long ago i bought a 2004 Dodge 1500 4x4. It has come time for new tires. I was told not to mix different height tires. What about different width or type of tread. I only have 1 place in all the places I drive that I could possibly need to lock it in but could get by with just a little more aggressive tire on back. Can I mix a m+s on the front and a little more aggressive tread on the back as long as they are the same height. I have never owned or wanted a 4x4 but this one came along at a price I couldn't pass up. Thanks in advance for any help.

read here

https://www.discounttiredirect.com/learn

That answers my question.
Thanks Tikkanut.
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Šhit...I am saving that link.

Most will say youcan't.
I checked that link, never saw 4wd mentioned. Only AWD.
Different animals. All AWD isn't the same even.


Here goes.

Ideally, the OD of all 4 would be identical.
Probably never be exact.
Actually, if you check gear ratio's, many 4wd vehicles have
slightly different ratio's front/rear.

Different widths wont matter too much, but you do want the
better gripping tires in the rear. Your back axle components will
be stronger than the front. So keep most stress on them.

Same with tread.

Some small difference in OD will be absolutely fine,
providing,
You only engage 4wd if you NEED it. (Slippery conditions)
If, for any reasons you will be using 4wd on dry hard surfaces, especially
asphalt or concrete, you want OD to be as closely matched as possible.

Older 4wd vehicles had warnings about only using 4wd in slippery conditions,
so that some slip could occur. That was before people needed 4wd to
navigate paved roads. When they "were bad".


A whole bunch of people are going to say I'm full of s_it.
That may be true.

But they won't be able to prove why they are right on this.
It's simple physics.

Some slippage needs to occur with your system, no matter the tires.
As long as the OD Isn't too far off, you will be fine.

Do you plan to never rotate them?

A set of tires with 40,000 or more miles on them will be approximately 1 size smaller than when they were new. Think about it, the tread on most truck tires is around 1/2" or more. If you wear them down to 1/8" your tires will be about 1" shorter than when new. That is about the same as the difference between a 245/75/16 and a 265/75/16. If you have a set of 265/75/16's on a truck near the end of their life and decide to only replace the ones on the front you have a 31.5" new tires on the front and a 30.5" tires on the rear even though they are the same size.

Here is a good link to visually see the difference between different tire sizes and how it effects your speedometer when you change sizes

https://tiresize.com/comparison/

There is also a gear ratio calculator option that you can click on to see how much changing tire size changes your actual gear ratio.

If your truck has 3.73 gears with a 31.5" tire; it will have 3.87 gears with a 30.5" tire.

With a 4X4, (if you plan to operate it in 4X4), you need to have 4 identical tires with very close to the same miles on all of them. Even with the same size if you were to only replace 2 of them and shifted into 4X4 it'd be the same as having 3.73 gears in the front axle and 3.87 gears in the rear. Is best to start with 4 identical tires and rotate them so they wear down the same.



Yep



That warning is still in the owners manuals of new 4X4 trucks. 4X4 hasn't changed all that much. There are AWD vehicles today, which isn't really new. Back in the 1970's and early 80's virtually all 4X4 trucks came standard with AWD with the option to lock into true 4X4. In fact you couldn't buy a Dodge, Chevy or Jeep truck without AWD. Only Ford continued to offer trucks without it.

4X4 and AWD are different, but AWD is much more forgiving. It is designed to allow all 4 wheels to get power and still turn at different speeds. 4X4 tries to force all 4 wheels to turn at the same speed. Having the same gear ratios front and rear along with the same diameter tires is pretty important. And operating in 4X4 on pavement, even wet pavement is a bad idea. Use it only on slippery surfaces.

When you go around a corner all 4 wheels take a different path and since the ones on the outside travel much farther they must turn much faster than the inside wheels. If you're on a surface that is slippery or has loose gravel, sand, mud, etc. the inside wheels will spin and slip some as you corner when you're in 4X4. They are now being forced to turn at the same speed as the outside wheels even though they have far less distance to travel. If they can spin freely there is no damage. If traction is good you risk breaking expensive parts inside the transfer case. Even if it doesn't break right away you are putting stress on parts and they will fail sooner than they would normally fail.

Modern 4x4 trucks are so easy to put in 4 wheel drive, Just run a decent AT tire on all 4. Even highway tires work fine, Except on ice, wet clay or wet grass.

The tires on an axle will corner at different speeds whether it's 4x4 or not. Your family car does the same thing. That's what the differential is for, to allow both wheels to keep rolling without damage. If you have a locker, that's another story.
It's the transfer case that takes the beating when turning in 4x4. The front and rear axles take a different path when turning and put stress on the t-case.

That was my very first thought.

Just run a good AT on all corners.

No advantage to having different tread fore and aft.

My 1st thought was to put something aggressive on the rear and a mud and snow on the front. The thought was to run it that way through the winter/the rainy season for us, then pull the aggressive and put m+s all the way around until next winter. The truck probably wont see 500 highway miles till spring.

thanx......Marlin '94 45 Colt......

20" in the scarce round barrel model.......

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I’d use the same type and size all around so you can rotate.