few questions, I got my 3 inch body lift yesterday and I was wondering how 33 ride on freeway's and every day driving? how bad is the gauge off after installing 33's? so my set up is going to be 3 inch Bl with 15 inch rims with 33x12.5 tires.

I have the 1999 Ranger with the v6 4.0 with automatic transmission.

 

http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html

Use this to calculate the difference in size and it will tell you the error in the speedo from stock to 33.

285/80/15 is a 33

 

Hmm, the calculator tells me I'm 50% slow on 33's.

Gears and such make a difference I suppose, and the fact I don't have a stock speedo. I'm in reality only 5mph off according to my GPS.

Good tool though. It beats math. :-P

 

Wirelessly posted (Timberwolf)

Depends on what type of tire. AT are less noisy than MT. Always keep your tire pressure in check.

 

Most of our trucks come from the factory with the speedo already off. When I put 33's on... I actually got closer to what my GPS was telling me I was going. 33's will depend on what gearing you have. If you have 3.73's... it might be kind of slow. I have 4.10's and it's not that bad, but I could tell a slight difference in take off. And yea, noise is determined by the type of tire... AT, MT, etc.

 

did you change the stock tire size? difference between the 185/60/14 that it defaults to and a 33 is 44.9% you have to put in factory tire size too...

 

you should be off by 10% or so. So 60mph on speedo would actually be 66-68mph actual speed.

 

The larger and wider the tire, the more stress you put on your suspension parts. About 10,000-15,000 miles after I switched from my 33x10.5 to a 33x12.5, is when my ball joints, tie rods and wheel bearings went. It could be coincidental, but I don't think the extra mass of the tire, or the extra surface area helped out. As per mpg, I have only noticed about 0.5-1 mpg loss with the 12.5" vs the 10.5" wide tire.

 

The switch from 10.50 to 12.50 was probably nothing. Bearings and ball joints in these trucks are crap. The height of a 33" tire is causing more stress than the width.


They ride fine on the freeway/highway. I ran several sets of 33x12.50R15s and always like them. My first set of ball joints went bad in the ranger at 50-60k with stock tires.