gears ot tires

Ok, ya got me on this one....

The idea of 'mud' tires is to have the 'best' traction going. This means you 'don't' want them to spin!

When they spin, they just dig holes and you go no place except straight down fast.

That is the beauty of my 33x9.5" muds. They just don't spin so I can walk up sand pit walls with my open diffs and 3.31 gears that take lockers front and rear for a TJ with wide tires to have even a 'little' chance of keeping up. He gets all 4 spinning and well. I have 'lots' of photos of them trying and trying and trying to get to where I am taking their photos from....

It makes running the mud pits almost no fun any more. I just drive on through only getting the underside muddy. They don't spin so I don't get the top covered in mud any more. If I have to clean the underside, I want to have mud on top to show for it dammit.

On the street in snow, spinning tires, just puts you in the ditch or again digs you holes or leaves you stranded at the bottom of the hill.

If you are geared too low so you spin tires, then forget about using 1st gear in the snow, you won't get going. This starting in second is hard on the clutch.

We actually were very pissed off when we 'upgraded' our tires on our Cherokee from p225's to p235's. The loss of traction because of the wider tire was Very noticeable and very disappointing now that we are stuck with them. These wider tires spin way too easy off a start in the snow. They also lose traction 5 or 10 mph slower than the p225's did so it is more white knuckle driving trying to keep up to transport trucks on the snowy highways.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail >

wider tire was Very noticeable and very disappointing now that we are stuck with them. These wider tires spin way too easy off a start in the snow. They also lose traction 5 or 10 mph slower than the p225's did

Woah - conflict of my internal nature!! Bigger footprint = more traction no?

Bigger footprint = higher flotation, which is good for sand and bottomless bog, but not so good for snow where you want the tire to sink in and bite for traction. With a more floaty tire it will just sit on the top of the snow and the lugs will not sink in.

The larger the tire the more it distributes weight. Sort of like walking on snow vs wearing skis.

Only to a point.... You will reach a footprint size that grabs the ground best for the 'weight' of the vehicle. Once you pass this point, you are lowering the PSI on the ground contact patch so it takes less power to break them free from the ground.

Normally this footprint is what the dealers list as the largest 'stock' tire or in my Cherokees case, a P225. Go wider and you compromise looks for traction.

This is one reason wide tires have to be aired down to grab. They then dig the sidewall edge of the tread into the ground and get two narrow edges grabbing strong so the center float isn't as bad. Leave them hard and you go nowhere fast.

Unless they are 'really' wide 'floater' tires, the average 'wide' tire on a 4x4 is just pure looks, not performance.

When we have to travel in the snow, we now leave the Cherokee home because of the compromised traction and take the CJ7 with it's tall skinnies that grab the road way better.

The CJ7's 'footprint' is a 7.5" wide tread on the 33x9.5" tires. The Cherokee's P235's are over 8.5" wide at the tread.

Look at military Jeeps. If wide tires were even slightly better for traction, those GI's getting their butts shot at would for sure have used them...

Same for folks like loggers that work in the bush. They all run tall skinnies on their trucks.

One of the many other folks from this group that run tall skinnies is Steve Seppala and he was at a mud pit competition with the 'big' boys. They convinced him to try the mud pit and he made it easily where they were getting stuck. One of them got stuck, so he hooked up and dragged him out no problem rather than wait for the tractor to come over.

He then told them about his missing front driveshaft that was home broken in the back yard......

Mike

There is a case to be made for higher gearing and skinny tires... My '43 GPW runs 32 inch tires (no lift needed) with a contact patch about

5 inches wide. The crawl ratio is only about 29:1, not very low. This, coupled with a weak stock motor (54 hp) makes sure the tires never spin so the jeep never loses traction. The only way it gets stopped is when the engine stalls (happens more than I would like).

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:

No, the wider tire footprint tends to "float" on the snow. The slightly narrower footprint digs in for better traction.

Tom

Thanks Mike - it makes sense. As soon as I read "dig in and bite" I thought of the old Army jeeps and their skinny tires and then I read further down about them! Good info.

Another reason to use narrower tires for cummuting:

I like the luggy, skinny tires for all weather driving. The narrow tires are less prone to hydroplaning when you hit a big puddle at highway speeds. And you would find that they dig in better and plow less when turning in snow especially when braking in turns.

Merrill

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:

They're also less expensive and offer less rolling resistance, yielding better fuel mileage. Skinny tires are underrated; everyone wants huge, fat tires these days because it looks cool, not because they DO anything special.