well, i've been searching constantly for some 33" tires to go on my new Cragars that are just sitting in my room and i was looking on National Tire and Wheel's site and they have 33x10.5 KM2's for $164 each and 33x12.5's for $202. i like the price difference, but my question is would a 10.5" wide tire be that much different than a 12.5" on the trails? i mean would i lose a signifigant amount of traction campared to the 12.5's? i was riding on the beach the other day and i almost sunk with these stock 225's and i was wondering if it would be the same story with the 10.5's. also would a 10.5" tire be too skinny on an 8" wheel? or would it look funny? sorry for all the newb questions.

any help will be greatly appreciated! thanks!

 

I thinnk i would go with the 12.5's. they will fit your wheel better and you would be able to air down more without worries of popping a bead. I don't think there will me much difference in traction the 12.5 would have a wider footprint for sand and rock traction but the 10.5 would cut through soft mud better. But i don't really know if there will be enough traction difference to say one way or the other. My biggest thing would be the 8" wide wheels the 12.5" in my eyes would be better for those.

 

Alot of it depends on what type of wheeling you do. You mention beach so I assume soft sand is your terrain of choice. With that, you would benefit more from the higher flotation of a 12.5 wide tire as it lowers your contact pressure. Some types of wheeling you want a higher contact pressure (slickrock) so you may benefit more from the skinny tire there.

If you look at my sig, I am running the skinny 33s but even those are a huge improvement over the stocker 225s in the sand. Either way, going to a 33 in either width will be an improvement.

 

Go middle of the road. I'm running a 295/70/17 that measures 33.5"x11.5. I've been very happy with the performance but they did cost a little more at $223 per tire.

 

thanks for the responses guys. this has really helped my decision. we do have a lot of sand down here in FL so the 12.5 would be good for that, but this is my DD and i'm really looking for something that's not so hard to turn and won't hurt my mpg's too much. plus the price is a pretty big difference. i'm doing more wheeling in this kinda clay stuff lately. it really fills up the stock tires fast. would the skinnier KM2 be better for that type of terrain? here's a pic of what some of the terrain looks like.....



....thanks for the link planman. that really helped my decision.

 

that's what i was really hoping to find. something like a 33x11.5 or like you have, a 33.5x11.5, but the only ones i could find were Interco TrXus MT's for a 15" wheel.....bummer

 

12.50s for sure

 

just wanted to thank everyone for the advice and help on this subject. i actually went with a 13.5" wide Krawler, but only because a killer deal popped up and i just couldn't pass it up. anyways.......

thanks!

 

I would def go with the wider one, I just got 11.5's really wanted 12.5's but I plan to go 37's in the future so I went for more driveability now and A/T's

 

actually, i wanted to go with the 33x11.5's at first. seems like that would be a great size to run at stock height. i'm hoping to go with 37's eventually too.

i can't wait to see how wide those 13.5's are on my stock Jeep