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Does anyone use them? I am talking 17's or 18's. Not 20s or 22s.
I want to use 31" tires and thought the handling on the road would be better with a lower aspect ratio.
Is this stupid? Any thoughts?
Lots of folks will grab a set of jk wheels (17" rim) and then use the adapters to correct the bolt pattern for their jeep. Fairly common practice now days, though I don't think most are shooting for "handling gains" with less sidewall to flex. It'd be more of the availability factor for tires in my opinion.
I think itd be a hard argument to say the slightly shorter sidewall has made much of a handling improvement over the worn out 20 yr old suspension.
15" wheels are becoming old news and the 17" wheel is seamingly the new standard. I've been contemplating doing the exact thing for a year or soo now to take advantage of cheaper used tires.
17's are super common. I can't say you're going to see a noticeable handling difference making only this swap on a ~25 year old station wagon. You probably shouldn't be driving it in such a way that it makes a difference.
I just went from 31 r15 to 33 r17. Only reason i change wheel size was because of a killer deal on 33s that came with the JK wheels.
I dont hate the look, but to be honest id rather still be on a 15 inch rim with 33's. I cant imagine running 17's with 31's, especially if you go off road at all. You're gonna want some sidewall. Also, its a jeep, not a race car. lol
No benefit to running wheels that big with tires that small, but plenty of disadvantages. Ideally you want your tire diameter to be no less than double your wheel diameter. So 15s would need at least 30s, 16s would need at least 32s, 17s would need at least 34s and so on. 31s on a 17 or 18 wheel would be a poor setup that would ride rougher and get worse traction than a 31 on a 15" wheel.
As a rule of thumb, that's a new one on me - & nobody told Jeep - or any other vehicle manufacturer. Back before wheels started getting smaller the average size tyre on a 15" rim was 185 - & there were plenty of smaller cars on 165/5.60's.
Coming more up-to-date, the largest OEM tyre on an XJ was 29"
Properly inflated, aligned and maintained will handle perfect on the road with just about any common XJ size tires/wheels. You are over thinking. If you offroad at all you want lots of flexy strong sidewall.
As a rule of thumb, that's a new one on me - & nobody told Jeep - or any other vehicle manufacturer. Back before wheels started getting smaller the average size tyre on a 15" rim was 185 - & there were plenty of smaller cars on 165/5.60's.
Coming more up-to-date, the largest OEM tyre on an XJ was 29"
We aren't talking about cars, we are talking about Jeeps which are vehicles that go off road. Stay on the street its fine, go off road and you will find out very quickly how poor of a choice a skinny tire on a big wheel is. I see trucks and SUVs with tire setups like that get stuck all the time, even in situations that aren't that bad and I can easily get though in 2wd.
We aren't talking about cars, we are talking about Jeeps which are vehicles that go off road. Stay on the street its fine, go off road and you will find out very quickly how poor of a choice a skinny tire on a big wheel is. I see trucks and SUVs with tire setups like that get stuck all the time, even in situations that aren't that bad and I can easily get though in 2wd.
OK, point taken but doesn't alter the fact that the largest stock XJ fitment is 29" Perhaps Jeep didn't mean them to go off-road
Correct, I misread your post, no reason to go with 17s on an XJ.
Good to hear as I still run 15s. Just trying to decide what tire to get for the next time I need tires (soon). I've always just gotten whatever's on sale or cheaper.
Wheels larger than 16"
