QOTD: Big Wheels, Small Sidewall – Yes or No?
The debate rages on, whether 22-inch, 24-inch, even 26-inch or larger wheels, and tires without a lot of sidewall to them, are okay or not.
Is this appealing in certain parts of the country, such as Arizona, California, Texas, and throughout the South all the way down through Florida? Are the weather conditions such that few, if any, lifted trucks and SUVs in the rust belt are inclined to run these big wheel and tire combinations?
We each have our preferences, the types of vehicles we like, the year, make, and model, and sometimes this discussion can get fairly heated. But nothing seems to set off enthusiasts from one camp or the other as much as wheels and tires, especially in combination with big lifts, and very detailed undercarriages.
Some call them brodozers and mall crawlers, descriptions less than kind and oftentimes meant to provoke a reaction from the owner or fan of these lifted trucks. Surprisingly, there seems to be less commotion caused by lowered trucks that have big rims and tires sometimes described as rubber bands, perhaps because they aren’t expected to do something else, such as go off-road, or pull a trailer, or carry a load.
What’s your take on this controversy, and do you see any difference between lifted and lowered trucks that run big wheels, and tires that aren’t in proportion to them?
[Images: © 2021, J. Sakurai/TTAC]
With a father who owned a dealership, I literally grew up in the business. After college, I worked for GM, Nissan and Mazda, writing articles for automotive enthusiast magazines as a side gig. I discovered you could make a living selling ad space at Four Wheeler magazine, before I moved on to selling TV for the National Hot Rod Association. After that, I started Roadhouse, a marketing, advertising and PR firm dedicated to the automotive, outdoor/apparel, and entertainment industries. Through the years, I continued writing, shooting, and editing. It keep things interesting.
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YUCK. Most have covered the functionality argument, so I’ll stay away from that and focus more on personal taste. There’s absolutely ZERO reason for wheel diameter to exceed 18” unless you’re running some gigantor 44”+ tires, then MAYBE a 20” wheel is warranted. I get that some people like the look but to me, that look is just plain awful. For one, modern style wheel designs seem to be trying to out weird/complicate each other. If it doesn’t have roots in the look of a classic Cragar, Ansen Sprint or some other 5, 6 or 8 spoke design...what are you even doing? I never understood the appeal of the cabbage shredder/garbage disposal blade designs....that got started when my buddies were all lowering minitrucks. Some newer designs mimic the crosslace BBS look, which I get on a sportscar but on a truck? Eeww. One thing I do notice on these bigger truck wheels is at least they tend to have a deep lip and some offset. I absolutely HATE flat-faced wheels, especially when the spokes come right to the edge of the tire without even a soft lip defining where the wheel ends and the tire begins. I succumbed to 20” wheels since my Scat Pack’s Brembos require them. Shopping for wheels that fit one of these is infuriating if your taste is classic musclecar styling. Most of what fits these modern Mopars looks like it belongs either on a Maxima or something unless you’re dropping $700+’on custom forged pieces. Adding insult to injury, the LX cars use a 5x115mm bolt pattern thats a thin blonde one off the classic 5x4.5” that they SHOULD have used. But in the end I went with Voxx Demon replicas, staggered. Best compromise of reasonable price and looks right.
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