How To Choose The Best Truck Wheels
Whether you’re customizing a truck for a local or national car show or simply just a truck owner looking to revamp the look of your rig, a new set of truck wheels can really enhance the overall appeal of your truck. Accessorizing your rig is nothing new. Fixing up a truck or car is a great pastime for many and these days it’s even more popular given how many want to floss a unique ride that represents their personal preferences and styles.
The easiest truck upgrade is adding a set of aftermarket truck wheels. With so many different brands, styles, colors and more to choose from, it can be quite challenging. Many wonder how to choose best truck wheels and loose themselves in the wealth of information online. To help simplify your search, we’ve got the deets on how to choose the best wheels for your truck!
Choosing the best and right wheels for your rig from the start can actually save you money, time and unnecessary headaches. Because if you don’t choose the right wheels, you’ll end up having to replace the ones you already purchased for ones that actually fit! There are tons of different factors that you’ll need to consider when choosing the best truck wheels and here are three main things you’ll need to consider:
The truck wheel size is important to think about because it will significantly impact the type of riding you’ll be able to do in your rig (this goes for truck tires, too). Let’s say you’re an avid off-roader and love to tackle rocky and rough terrain (or any extreme terrain), you’ll want a truck wheel that can hold up and some tires that are at minimum 35″ in diameter. For extreme off-roading occasions, you’ll need at least 37″ tires that have proper tread pattern for the rig to tackle. It’s good to note that any muddy terrain needs a more aggressive tire tread design or else your rig won’t perform as you’d like.
At GRID Off-Road, we offer two types of truck wheels: cast and forged. Both of our GD and GF collection off plenty of fresh styles, sizes and finishes to choose from. However, the main difference between them is price and finishes. The Forged GF truck collection from GRID has more sizes, custom finishes and are a bit more expensive. They’re perfect for those looking to showcase their ride at shows or floss on the pavement. The cast GD truck wheel collection comes in various finishes that are pretty much set as you see them on our site. Sizes are limited, but they come at a great price point for someone just looking to really change up the exterior of their truck.
For truck tires and wheels, the type of rig you drive is important when it comes to choosing the best off-road wheels. It doesn’t matter if you just commute or go off-roading, the set of truck wheels needs to be perfectly matched to the type of truck you have. At GRID Off-Road, we can help you figure that out given we have an in-house engineer on our team to help! You can contact us at sales@grid-offroad.com for inquires and to get information on a local GRID Off-Road dealer. Currently, we only sell our GD cast line directly from our site, so if you’re looking at GRID GF forged wheels, you’ll have to go through an authorized dealer.
Check out this bad boy Chevy Silverado looking pretty dope on some GF0 GRID Off-Road truck wheels! Playing in the dirt is what makes life fun and a GMC Sierra won’t disappoint. Besides a fly set of GF0 brushed wheels, the Sierra also sports some Toyo Tires Open Country MT rubber, a 12” Bulletproof lift, King Shocks, Atlas Leaf Springs and BodyGuard Bumpers. While this beast might not be a show queen, it’s the perfect rig to go out and get dirty!
Ever get confused by all the numbers telling you the specs and dimensions for the wheels on your truck? Adding to the confusion of all the different terms is the fact that both wheels and tires use the silliest combination of metric and standard for their measurements.
So let's clear things up!
For wheels, you have four main measurements: diameter, width, backspace and offset. What are they? Why are they important?
In this post, we're going to take a look and discuss how they affect both the look and performance of your truck, specifically for Toyotas.
Buckle in!
Diameter is pretty simple: it's how large the wheel is across the circumference.
The larger the wheel, the shorter the tire sidewall will be. So the first question is, how short do you want your sidewall? For off-road, you want a larger tire sidewall to allow the tire to wrap around obstacles and give more traction. For street, you want a shorter sidewall so you get better handling as the tire won't deflect as much around corners.
You also need to pay attention to what size wheel will fit your vehicle as brakes can come into contact with wheels that are too small.
As we work mostly on off-road Toyotas in our shop, we typically install 17” rims on Tacomas and 4Runners. Some 16” rims can fit the Tacoma, but not the 4Runner.
Width is probably even simpler than diameter. It’s the measurement of how wide the rim is. You want to select a rim width depending on what size tire you're installing.
If your rim is too wide for your tire, then the bead (the part that boa bra bra) can pop off really easily.
On the other hand, if your rim is too narrow, then that will change your tire profile and give worse traction and bad wear patterns.
Keeping with our Toyota theme, we typically recommend a rim around 8.5” that will fit most 33s and most 35s.
Backspace is the measurement from the wheel mounting surface to the inside edge of the rim. This is important because if your backspace is too high (wheel further into the wheel well), then you can rub on the UCA, spindle or frame, depending on your tire size.
A low backspace on the other hand will make the wheel “poke” out of the wheel well, which might be a cool look but is going to affect the scrub radius and cause the tire to rub on the fenders or firewall.
Backspace is affected by how wide the rim is. So if you’re running an 8.5” wide wheel with a 4.5” backspace, then the wheel will be 4” outside of the wheel mounting surface. Of course, where and how much your tire rubs depends on what size tire you’re running.
I typically recommend somewhere between a 4 to 4.75” backspace. However, some people like lower backspace to get that staaaaaaaance.
Our final measurement is offset, which is linked directly to backspace. Basically, offset refers to how far the wheel mounting surface is to the wheel’s centreline. This is the only spec that is in MILLIMETRES for NO REASON.
A lower offset means a lower backspace. Common offsets for off-road people are 0 or -10. However, I’ve seen people who want lots of poke who go all the way down to -38.
Personally, I prefer to use backspace over offset because it makes more sense to me, but offset is very similar. Everybody has their preference, but people that prefer offset are just a little weird.
So that’s it! That's the basics on wheel fitment. Hopefully that helped to clear some of the cobwebs and make sense of a topic that's been way overcomplicated.
I’d love to hear from you. What size wheel do you run? Do you prefer offset over backspace? (Why????) Do you like a bunch of poke or prefer a more conservative stance?
Let me know below in the comments and make sure you check our YouTube channel where we share more useful content like this. Or if you're looking for wheels yourself, be sure to check out what we offer!