Grit dog
Full Access Member
- Joined
- May 18, 2020
- Posts
- 9,429
- Reaction score
- 17,285
- Location
- The Right side of Washington
- First Name
- Todd
- Truck Year
- 1986, 1977
- Truck Model
- K20, C10
- Engine Size
- 454, 350
So you’re saying (honest question) that it’s not the flatter bead angle 15deg vs 5 deg and lack of a safety bead but the tire design, guessing too stiff, that begets the higher pressures. And if someone made a squishy-er sidewall tire in those rim sizes that they would be just fine at much lower pressures?No sir, none of that. There have been many many light truck type 16.5" tires with a max psi of 35-50 psi, and still to this day too. Interco tires, for example. Plus a bunch of obscure brands of tires that are focused more on farm/implement tires.
A light truck 16.5" tire is just that- a light truck tire. There's no reason a tire manufacturer couldn't produce a light truck 22.5" tire, designed to run at light truck pressures. No, I don't believe it's a good idea to run low pressures in 17.5-24.5 truck tires as they are not designed for that.
Also, I don't know where your recommendations came from, but a 16.5" light truck tire has no problem staying seated at 20 psi or less.
If that’s the case then it makes zero sense why at least 1 mfg doesn’t capitalize on that, not for 22.5s on slammed duallys but for the larger market (still not huge but much bigger) of class 3-5 trucks rolling on 19.5s that don’t want or need all that harshness and load capacity.
To your point it would be the best of both worlds for many to have some 19.5s that were say in the 3600lb cap range which would be the limit of a LT tire on the upper end of widths that would still work on 19.5 rims.
I’m guessing the NHTSA would not allow it though as one could easily put tires on a truck that are much lower than the gvw or allowable axle loads. (Although literally no different than mounting a P rated tire on a 1 ton truck now. There is no regulation that prevents the lighter tire from being mounted as they’re the same bead design)
Good discussion.
Although I’ve always been told the pressure was due to the bead angle. That’s what the whole world is lead to believe.

