- What's going on, guys, Fuller here
with Custom Offsets, Custom Offsets TV on the Youtube,
coming at you with another video in our From the Inbox
series where we answer your questions that you either
DM us or drop in the comments, or message us on Instagram,
Snapchat, Facebook, wherever you're getting ahold of us,
this is where we answer your questions.
So, we get a lot of questions sometimes
from people that are asking, you know,
I want to go with wide wheels, but how wide
can I got before I start running into issues
in the front end and start wearing out all the components
for steering and wheel bearings, etc, and so on,
so we're kinda gonna dive into that and show you
how wide you can go before you start breaking stuff.
Also, if you haven't yet, make sure you subscribe, because
well, we're trying to hit 200,000, and basically
my job depends on it, and I'd really like
to keep bringing home a paycheck.
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If you want to see what fits your truck fitment-wise,
like, how big can you go on a certain lift size,
that's what our gallery is for, customoffsets.com/gallery,
you can plug in your year, make, and model and see
exactly what fits on your truck.
What we're talking about today is how wide
can you go before you start breaking things.
So, if you've looked at all on our website
or at the gallery you've probably seen a whole
bunch of trucks with a really aggressive stance
because that's kinda what we're known for
and it's what most of the guys here that are running trucks
are running on their vehicles, something really wide
that sticks out super far, and that's kind the hot look
right now that a lot of people are going for.
I'm sure there's plenty of guys that are gonna say
nah, 17s and 35s give me a whole lot of rubber,
not a lot of wheel, but we love the big, wide wheels
that stick out super far, and basically destroy
your paint, but that's another video.
So, the question is, do wide wheels affect your truck
in a negative way, and it's not necessarily the width
that is doing that, but it's the added weight.
So, if you're buying a wheel in a standard package
off the website, we ship the already
mounted, bounced, and good to go,
and they're actually really heavy, and I think
a lot of people don't comprehend that when they're
ordering a package, because the typical package
just shows up on your doorstep, and we ship on a palate.
It's gonna be a couple hundred pounds, it really depends
on sizes, but obviously the bigger you go,
the heavier it is, and that added weight
on your truck is what really affects it.
So, when your truck is stopped, you can picture
the body of the truck straight on like this,
and basically the wheels are right underneath it.
So the weight is equally distributed straight down
and you're not putting any other stress on the truck.
Now, if you have your truck body here,
and wheels stick out further, all the weight is centered
down, and basically since the wheels are further out,
you're putting more stress on those wheels,
and where they mount up to your hub, so essentially
you could imagine an extreme case where your body
is pressing the weight down, and your wheels are
sticking out here, is basically pushing them in like this.
So, that's one of the things that is gonna cause
your wheel bearings to wear out faster than they
normally would, if you had a stock wheel tire setup
or something narrower.
Now, a lot of people are super worried about this
and you don't really have to be, because it's not extreme.
You're not gonna be replacing wheel bearings every weekend,
you can easily run a 10-wide, a 12-wide, even a 14-wide
and not have to worry about it too much.
The wider you go, obviously, the further
your wheels are out, so the more stress
it does put on your wheel bearings, but it's not
something, like I mentioned, that you're gonna be
replacing every weekend.
Solutions for wheel bearings,
there's not a ton of options out there.
Depending on what truck you have, they do
offer heavy duty or HD types of wheel bearings
that you can replace your stock ones with,
but there's not too many options out there,
so you're kinda stuck with just using an OEM replacement,
and just knowing that it's not every year, but maybe
every two years, or something like that,
it really depends on your mileage.
You might have to replace wheel bearings.
And it's not too big of a job, especially if you
work on your vehicle yourself.
Another thing that's greatly impacted
when you add really wide wheels and tires
to your vehicle is your tire rods.
So, tire rods are relatively thin.
If you take a look at them, it's kind of
surprising how thin they really are, when they're a major
component in the steering of your vehicle.
So, by adding all that extra weight
that you're putting further out, your tire rods
are working harder to pull your wheel and tire
in or push it out depending on which way you're turning,
and that added stress on those cause cracks,
and eventually potentially a break.
So, if you want to replace your tire rods
with something else, there are some
kits, like higher-end kits from like Kryptonite,
or some of the nicer kits on the market
that do come with updated, new and heavy-duty
tire rod ends, but the original tire rod itself
is still gonna be that thinner piece of metal,
so you still do have a weak point.
And essentially with all components on the front end,
the stress is just gonna get transferred to
whatever the weakest point is.
So if you have a beefier tire rod end
but the tire rod itself is thinner, the tire rod
end might be fine, but now your actual tire rod
is going to snap, or so on and so forth,
it kinda goes down the line.
So there are a couple options for getting upgrades there,
if you want to look into different kits
that are on the market that do offer
those better tire rod ends so that helps it out
a little bit there.
If you keep going down the line, further into the truck,
the other issues that you run into on HD trucks
or on older trucks would be your pivot arm
or your idler arm, those components, same thing.
As long as your tire rod and your tire rod ends hold up,
then that stress gets transferred to the next part,
being your pivot arm, and again, that's something
that is impacted by steering and adding
the extra weight on the outside is just pushing
and pulling all the time, and that's where
the added stress comes from.
So, those are also something that, if you're buying
a lift kit for your vehicle, usually
there's a new pivot arm that comes with it,
which is stronger than the OEM variant.
So, a lot of times, if you're using
a lift kit that retains those factory operated
control arms, they're gonna be at an extreme angle
which puts extra wear and tear on those ball joins.
So that's something that you're gonna want to look into,
either A, buying a kit that comes with new upper
control arms, or looking into options with Uniball kits,
I know Fabtech offers a really great Uniball kit,
or you can also consider going to a different style
of upper control arm that isn't necessarily
with the kit, but they offer them separately,
that offers a Uniball kit, or just upgrade to
some Move suspension products, we really like those.
Those are super heavy duty and they work really well.
Or check out Kryptonite, they have a lot of options
for GM trucks, we do carry some of the Kryptonite products
on our website, and they're one of the only companies,
actually, that offers upgraded wheel
bearings for GM trucks also.
So, is it possible to run super-wide wheels?
Do we run super-wide wheels?
Absolutely, and it's kinda one thing,
if you're an enthusiast and you like building trucks,
or you like building cars or it's something
that you just understand, when you put
after-market products into a vehicle
you decrease some reliability whether it's performance
parts or suspension or wheels and tires, because
if it's not how it came from the factory,
it's not how it's designed to work.
But we all say screw that because
we love the way that our trucks look.
Guys, if you have any other questions,
feel free to drop them in the comments below,
or shoot us a message on Snapchat, Instagram,
Pinterest, Twitter, wherever, we're all over the place.
Peace.
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