Quick Tire Check for TBSS 20 inch replicas

[xtitan1]

Hey guys,

I just got 4 20" TBSS replica wheels (8") from 05tbowner, who is a pretty cool dude, btw. I'm shopping for tires tomorrow and have been doing a heck of a lot of research. Apparently the guys at TBSS forums are saying that 275/45/20 is the size to go with (265/50/20 was also a contender, but guys were saying the 275s handled cornering slightly better and had more tire options).

I have a stock 4x4 suspension and was just making sure these would fit. What do you guys think?

Also, I have heard good things about Grabber UHP, Firestone Destination ST, hankook Ventus RH06s (although they appear to be discontinued and replaced by RH07, which I haven't heard much about), Nitto 420, BFG KDW, and Yokohama Parada Spec-X. The Nittos, Ventus, and BFGs don't seem to be available locally in my size.

I was thinking of going with the Spec-X because of their tire rack rating and they happen to be available at both the local tire places. Any thoughts on this?

 

[blazinlow89]

Find a tire size calculator, we can fit up to 30.5" (not huge knobby ones) with the factory spacing. Any larger and you need spacers. Only reason I say this is because when I was looking for tires for a set of 20"s I was thinking of getting, I found one size that had a ton of options, good prices etc. Meanwhile If I changed the size slightly, the price tripled and the options diminished.

Unless you plan to do road racing you should not notice a huge difference between either size though.

 

[jimmyjam]

both of those sizes will fit fine

I've never heard a bad thing about any of those tire models. I've had the hankooks and have liked them, friends have had the yokos and liked them, I really like the tread pattern on the BFGs and Nittos, looks sporty. I always buy my tires online because whenever I go to a store they always try and rip you off. their first quote is $100 more than it should be, you have to haggle them down to internet prices... annoying...

 

[xtitan1]

both of those sizes will fit fine

I've never heard a bad thing about any of those tire models. I've had the hankooks and have liked them, friends have had the yokos and liked them, I really like the tread pattern on the BFGs and Nittos, looks sporty. I always buy my tires online because whenever I go to a store they always try and rip you off. their first quote is $100 more than it should be, you have to haggle them down to internet prices... annoying...

Lol just realized your avatar is ogre

 

[Canary2323]

275 looks a little better, fills up the wheel well. Seemed to drive a little better too, going to go with 275 when my stock ss tires wear out.

 

[xtitan1]

Roger that I'm at Mavis right now. Tried to sell me on new rotors and pads for the rear. $169. I don't know how to tell whether they are worn or not. The pads are about 1/3 or 1/4 of an inch thick. What do u guys think?

 

[blazinlow89]

Roger that I'm at Mavis right now. Tried to sell me on new rotors and pads for the rear. $169. I don't know how to tell whether they are worn or not. The pads are about 1/3 or 1/4 of an inch thick. What do u guys think?

$169 for parts and labor? Not sure how mechanically inclined you are but its a fairly easy job. Also seeing as you have 20" wheels now, you could just wait and get the EXT/SS brake rotors for the front and the required bracket. You could also run the brakemotive kit. What do you want out of it is the real question.

Judging thickness by size is hard depending on the brand of brake pads. However 1/4-1/3 of an inch should last a little while. The rotors on the other hand could be warped. Have you noticed any issues when braking.

 

[xtitan1]

$169 for parts and labor? Not sure how mechanically inclined you are but its a fairly easy job. Also seeing as you have 20" wheels now, you could just wait and get the EXT/SS brake rotors for the front and the required bracket. You could also run the brakemotive kit. What do you want out of it is the real question.

Judging thickness by size is hard depending on the brand of brake pads. However 1/4-1/3 of an inch should last a little while. The rotors on the other hand could be warped. Have you noticed any issues when braking.

Parts and labor correct.

I have not noticed any issues when braking. Also they are still very quiet. He didn't say anything about the rotors being warped, not that that necessarily means anything.

I think I will put brakes and rotors on my "do soon" list. I am familiar with what you mean by the EXT brake upgrade. Is the SS brakes option you mentioned the same thing or different? I also think your advice to do all four and do it myself makes a ton of sense. Thank you for the advice. Time for me to start reading up!

I'm not well experienced with cars, but I am very eager to learn, and I think I am up to the challenge. Plus, I have GMTNation to back me up if I have trouble figuring it out!

 

[xtitan1]

I did decide to do an alignment since it has been awhile. You can see the wheels on there. I am going to plasti dip them this week. My GF got me a wheel kit from dipyourcar for our anniversary. I think I might wet sand them a little first though because they say it promotes adhesion and the gold was rattle canned on there by a previous owner of them and there are runs.

 

[jrSS]

I did decide to do an alignment since it has been awhile. You can see the wheels on there. I am going to plasti dip them this week. My GF got me a wheel kit from dipyourcar for our anniversary. I think I might wet sand them a little first though because they say it promotes adhesion and the gold was rattle canned on there by a previous owner of them and there are runs.

Ah....u bought the gold wheels. Sand with 320 grit. To smooth things out (runs etc.)

 

[xtitan1]

Ah....u bought the gold wheels. Sand with 320 grit. To smooth things out (runs etc.)

Roger that, will do. I assume when you say sand, you're implying wet and not dry sanding? And until it looks smooth to the eye or I have all the gold off, or what? I haven't dipped ever before. This is the kit my GF bought me:

https://www.dipyourcar.com/True-Metallic-Wheel-Kit.html

Options I chose were:

• Aluminum
• High Gloss
• Standard
• 1

I also got the accessory kit.

 

[blazinlow89]

How much you want to sand is really up to you. Do you want all the gold paint off to get to the original surface, or just to rough it up. Honestly as long as the surface is pretty good then just sand them to get better adhesion. I would also work the runs out as they could transfer to the finished coat. I would think dry sanding is fine, 320 is rough enough to get the runs out but not take too much off. Since the plastidip is just a "temporary" coat I would not worry about wet sanding. Just sand until fairly smooth, wash with dish detergent to remove grease, dirt etc, let air dry or use something that is lint free to get the water off.

 

[xtitan1]

Well just drove 120 miles down to Philly and realized afterwards that the front driver tire has no air in it. I tried filling it up but I just drove it for an hour and it's out again.

 

[blazinlow89]

Well just drove 120 miles down to Philly and realized afterwards that the front driver tire has no air in it. I tried filling it up but I just drove it for an hour and it's out again.

Could be a multitude of things, easiest would be to make sure you didnt pick up any road shrapnel that may have punctured your tire. If that checks out then you may be looking at a bad valve stem, loose schrader valve, or even a bad tire/seam of tire and wheel. All of which can be check with an easy test. If you can fill the tire with air, then spray the tire with a foamy soap solution. Look for air bubbles forming. If you are on the road a car wash can make this easy just use the low pressure soap to get a good soak on the tire to check for leaks. If its a schrader valve then replacement is easy for any tire shop, or it may just need to be tightened.

Or you can just go to a tire shop which would most likely spray the tire with soap, or dunk it to check for leaks.

 

[xtitan1]

Could be a multitude of things, easiest would be to make sure you didnt pick up any road shrapnel that may have punctured your tire. If that checks out then you may be looking at a bad valve stem, loose schrader valve, or even a bad tire/seam of tire and wheel. All of which can be check with an easy test. If you can fill the tire with air, then spray the tire with a foamy soap solution. Look for air bubbles forming. If you are on the road a car wash can make this easy just use the low pressure soap to get a good soak on the tire to check for leaks. If its a schrader valve then replacement is easy for any tire shop, or it may just need to be tightened.

Or you can just go to a tire shop which would most likely spray the tire with soap, or dunk it to check for leaks.

Roger that, I checked the tire for shrapnel and didn't find any. Then I checked the valve stem and it super long and I am able to get it to leak air if I push it a little. I think it may have gotten knocked by something and tore a seam. I guess I will go somewhere tomorrow and get them all changed out.

 

[mikeinDE]

So you gonna be sportin' these on SAT right? :wootwoot:

 

[xtitan1]

So you gonna be sportin' these on SAT right? :wootwoot:

Yeah, I had them take the tires off of my 16" stockers so I don't have any other way to go even if I wanted to. I will try to get them fixed tomorrow, and then work in some sanding and plasti-dipping so hopefully they will be dipped in time as well. MAY said he wanted to see what dipped wheels looked like in person so I'm trying to make it happen.

 

[blazinlow89]

I've got 4 mounted and ready to go

 

[xtitan1]

I've got 4 mounted and ready to go

You coming tomorrow bro? If you are, update the list on the thread so everyone knows!



Anyway, had the local Pep Boys go ahead and install new valve stems on all four tires. It was really only necessary to replace the broken one, but I have OCD and having those things stick out and be mismatched would have really bothered me. As it turns out, they didn't use the same kind of stem for all 4 tires, so they don't match completely now anyway, but at least they are short and are not leaking! They put the metal caps on though, which after watching MAY's latest video, I now know may result in "fusing" of the cap to the stem, as opposed to plastic caps that do not have this issue. I should have asked for my plastic caps back so I could put them on. Now I'm going to have to spend more money to buy new ones lol.

Also, they said that because they had to take the tires off of the wheels, that they would need to re-balance. I didn't know whether that was necessary or not as I'm not even really sure why a wheel isn't "balanced" in the first place (excuse my ignorance, I'm still learning). The bill was $72 all said and done. So I finally have functioning tires. I will go and check tread depths later to see if one of the tires is significantly more worn than the others (I'm not sure if they rotated the tires around or not, so I'm not sure that the underinflated front driver's tire is still actually in that location, so I will check all four).

Impressions from a noob:

• The 275/50/20 Parada Spec-Xs are actually a lot softer feel than my OEM tires (by that I mean that they don't feel as jarring when going over small potholes and stuff, sorry if this is not the right terminology). I was surprised because I was expecting the opposite being that I went from 16" wheels to 20" wheels with basically the same outer diameter tire.
• It's raining pretty hard today and they stick in corners pretty well, definitely much better than my OEM tires, although those were dry rotting pretty bad by the time I put these new wheels and tires on (8 years of no garage, 50k miles).
• The amount of road noise while driving is reduced somewhat compared to the OEMs.
• Combined with my PCM of NC tune, acceleration is vastly improved compared to what this vehicle was capable of 6 months ago (also known as BGMTNE, or Before GMT Nation Era).
• Lastly, that same "soft" feel I described is also present at higher highway speeds and results in 70 MPH feeling like 50, and 80 MPH feeling like 70. It will take a while to relearn what those speeds feel like, as right now I keep surprising myself when I look down at the speedometer and realize I'm 20 MPH over the speed limit and didn't mean to be (I like to cruise at 5 MPH above).

 

[xtitan1]

BTW, some recent MAY03LT videos for you that are very timely considering their subject matter. Y'all may have missed them because he wasn't checking "notify subscribers" so they weren't coming up in the subscriptions feed.

[video=youtube;usyoJK8VRuI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usyoJK8VRuI[/video]
[video=youtube;sTq33Ch2ll4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTq33Ch2ll4[/video]
[video=youtube;YlA6QBR4U6o]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlA6QBR4U6o[/video]