Steel wheels? Tire sizes? Help!

[kyle_conrad]

Hey y'all - my BS Outer Banks is on the way, but I'm interested down the road in replacing the wheels on it with something more akin to the steelies that are an option on the Badlands. I've literally never bought wheels and tires before though, so I have no idea what I would even be looking for!

My understanding is that the OBX comes with 18" wheels, but the BL comes with 17" - assumption is that those would fit? If I found someone selling (or an OEM replacement version) the BL wheels/tires, I can just take them to a shop and have them popped on and an alignment done?

For aftermarket stuff, all the tire sites are basically using the OBX 18" size as the baseline, so hard to find any steel style wheels for that - would I just be able to pick Badlands or Big Bend instead so more options come up? Are there any specifics (size, depth, width, etc.) that I need to watch out for? Same goes for tires I guess since I have no idea how that works.

I guess along with that, any specific sites that seem to have more options on this front, or recommendations of specific wheels/tires you've purchased that work well?

I'll note: the only off roading I would be doing in this is very light, for things like camping and hiking, so not worried about super tough things. Primary usage is really errands around the city and roadtrips (so no daily commute either).

(I know this is very open-ended, just trying to gain better knowledge of how it all works!)

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[Kritas]

Cruise through the wheels and tires section of this forum, as there are a lot of informative posts and links to tools that will help. This is a great tool:

Tire size calculator: compare tires online (tire-calc.com)

If you have Discount Tire in your area, they are a sponsor of this site. Matt is the rep and is extremely helpful. You can look him up as Discount Tire and message him here.

Welcome aboard!

 

[Mark S.]

To avoid someone writing a book to answer your question you should do some research on your own. You can start here with a guide explaining what the numbers on your tires mean.

https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=46&

The tire size calculator posted by John can help you compare different tire sizes (click the Compare tab) to ensure you match up overall diameter.

Wheels also have specific requirements, among them they need to have the correct backspacing and offset. You can read about that here:

https://www.discounttiredirect.com/learn/offset-backspace

As a general rule any tires and wheels you buy should match the OEM spec. If you deviate too much from OEM numbers you can run into fitment and interference issues. Once you understand all the terms and numbers at the links above then follow John's advice to review the tire section of the forum to see what others have done.

 

[kyle_conrad]

To avoid someone writing a book to answer your question you should do some research on your own. You can start here with a guide explaining what the numbers on your tires mean.

https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=46&

Ah, this is perfect - I honestly didn't even know where to start on this, so this seems like a really helpful way to dive in and get a handle on it!

 

[Meanderthal]

Just because you asked and it hasn't been answered, you can put 17" wheels on the OBX, it just happens to come with 18". Of course the tire size will have to be different to compensate for that change, but it is an easy fix and any tire retailer would be able to help you choose a new tire.

Also, the "steelies" that are offered by Ford aren't actually steel wheels, they are an aluminum cast wheel that was designed to look like a steel wheel. I'm pretty sure you can get an actual steel wheel in 17" and it would be a lot cheaper than the Ford version. It would be really cool (at least to me) to have one of the old fashion center hub-caps that just covers the lug area.

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