I'll soon be comming down from a very busy lawn maintenance season and I'm finally gonna make some time to replace my worn out tires.
And since I'm forced to take a few days off to get over the Flu, it gives me time to find the right tires.
I now have the stock size LT265/75R16E tires.
What I'd like to get is the tire that's going to promote the best fuel mileage.
I pull a 14ft utility trailer during the summer M-F runnning my landscape maintenance business. I don't drive as much in the winter.
I do mixed driving hwy and city. I rarely go off road, so my main focus is road service. I expect to do more highway traveling soon. Snow and ice isn't much of a factor here in the Midsouth. And when the weather gets that bad I usually stay in anyway. You ain't seen bad driving till you see Memphians on ice.
Although I like the look of bigger tires on a FWD, I don't want it to cost me in fuel consumption.
What is the optimal tire size for fuel mileage on my truck? Same as stock? Taller? Narrower?
And furthermore, any recommendations for specific tires? or tire deals?
What's you fovorite online vendor?
I have an alignment shop around the corner that is honest and does good work, so I'm fine with ordering and having them to mount, balance, align, etc.

 

i have always heard taller and narrower (within reason or course) gives the best mileage.
reading what you do with you truck, i would just replace it with the same stock ones you had. i mean if you have an '04 and this is the first time you are replacing tires that means they lasted you at least 4yrs! thats great! if you don't have any complaints why change and they should be pretty reasonably priced. just my two cents!

 

Well I've only got a little over 50K on these tires. And I really should've replaced them last year. They are in bad shape now. So it's not that these tires are so great and long lasting, it's that I've worn them beyond what I should've.

I intended to get tires last Fall. I also intended to finish the garage that I started early last year. And with the finished garage I would be able to do work on my truck, maintain equipment, etc. That's what I usually do in the off season is work on my fixer-upper old house with some winter work interspersed for income. But, instead, last Fall I tweeked my already hurt knee and I could no longer put off knee surgury. Recovery consumed my entire off-season, no projects got done at home and no income producing winter work was done. So I had to tighten up the budget till about mid-Summer. Now I need to get caught up on my truck maintenance.

And so I've turned to my fellow FTE members for advice. I'd like to put bigger tires on, but that's only for the looks. And, as I said before, economics gets priority over looks. I'm still not finished with my garage so I need to avoid getting onto a situation were I have to change gear ratios to compensate for bigger tires. I guess that really narrows the choice to either my stock size LT265/75R16E or the other size I've read others using LT235/85R16E. I made a tire dimension calculator in Excel for easy comparison. The 235 is 1.18" narrower and .08" taller, so it's significantly narrower but practially the same diameter. Has anyone seen significant improvement in fuel mileage by going from the LT265/75R16E to the LT235/85R16E on a 4WD 6.0PSD F250. The second big factor would be smoothess of the ride. I prefer the look and extra tread grip of the 265s, but if the 235s makes a significant improvement in fuel economy and smoother ride then I'd be willing to go that route. What do you guys think?
And again, suggestions on specific tires and where to get the best deal on tires is welcome.

 

understandable...IMO my 4x4 looks pretty got with 33" tires. i don't like dealing with metric tire sizes but since you said you wanna go bigger for looks i would go with a 33 up to 35 inch tire and that should fit your 4x4 at stock hight. most of these size tires come at least 12.5" wide. i'm looking for 35's right now to fit my 18" wheels and found that procomp is doing the buy 3 get 1 free deal again.