It's certainly going to help. It doesnt matter how much skill you have. The wider tires keep your body off of the washouts. Where I am at, we frequently wheel in places where the sides of your vehicle WILL come in contact with the ground/trees/rocks, and if you've got skinnies tucked up inside the fenderwells, there is nothing to keep your fender from getting trashed.

wider tires will help keep the body away from walls, not just skill alone

Wheeling causes body damage. Fat tires do help keep it to a minimum + on the heavier rigs (Gen2's and 3's) you get better contact pressure to the ground with the wider footprint. Skinnies do [censored] rock on the shortys though, so buy a deep wheel or a thick spacer.

Guess what saved that side of the body, minimal damage <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" /> You go PA_JERO!.

1.)Didn't mention running 11.5s on 15x7 or 12.5s on 15x8s. Those are actually the proper widths for those rims sizes. I am talking running a 9.5" on a 7", and a 10" on a 8". Guys that run the 34x9.5s like that I have on 7" rims pop a lot more beads than on the 6" rims, and you are more likely to pop a bead with a 10.5" on an 8" rim than a 12.5".

@ SandRaider glad you didn't pop a bead at 11psi, but in the lower ranges 6-9psi I am sure you would be more likely to pop one with the 10.5s than the 12.5s you have now.

@ Icy an 11.5" wide tire is ideal for a 15x7" rim. I was talking 9.5" on a 15x7". And good luck with the LTBs. The 34x10.5s were my second choice, but they have less tread and run smaller than the 9.5s do so that influenced my decision.

2.)Wider tires help keep the truck up off of walls etc. There are many cases where you are in rutted areas with high mud walls where skill and winching isn't apart of it.





The ruts shown above are stepped to where your drivers side wheel goes up in the air 3-4 feet pushing your passengers side into the wall. If you have wider tires they hit the wall before the body does, and keep you from experiencing body damage. Anyone that doesn't believe this I can show you the pictures of my damage, and then what I watched from inside Mark's truck as his 12.5" tires kept him off the wall preventing body damage.

3.)No one ever said body damage doesn't come with the territory of wheeling. And part of wheeling is challenging your truck and overcoming obstacles. The risk of body damage is always there, but the fact is wider tires help prevent body damage in a lot of cases where it would be inevitable with skinnys no matter the persons skill or if they had a winch.

It is the same principal with people that run rock sliders that stick out past the body. They use them in many cases to keep the body of the truck up off rocks, mud walls etc.

So next time any of you come up to Uwharrie to wheel with us we will swap and you can run my skinny 34x9.5s. You can go through the exact same obstacles I got body damage on and we will see how skill and a winch gets you out of it. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/baby.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/nana.gif" alt="" />

What are you waiting for? You said you would post pics <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

inspiration:
http://www.4x4wire.com/forums/showf...;amp;page=0&fpart=1&vc=1

I'm so awesome <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />



screwed:


not so screwed:

<img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />

That is funny stuff. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" /> Thanks for the laugh.

Yes the tires sticking out do help. They saved my fenders a few times.

This picture is great to prove my point. The width of the tire is not the tool that is preventing the damage but the added distance that it adds inbetween the object and the body. I can run a 2 inch wide tire three feet from the edge of the axle, or I could run it inside the fender not producing any protection buffer. That and that alone is what is saving you body from damage not whether or not the tire is 2 inches or 2 feet wide. You could mount a wider tire onto a vehicle and adjust the backspacing so that the tire does not protrude from the body at all. So if you want to prevent body damage go buy wheel spacers, or different backspaced rims, not wider tires. The rule of thumb I've followed is for every inch you lift it up, you need to make it atleast an inch wider. Besides Eli you need to bury those superwinches some.