bryanthieme

Currently my '10 Unlimited has 17" stock rims.

I am thinking of upgrading tires and wheels.

My jeeps doesn't have a lift, and if I add one it will only be a couple of inches.

I plan on putting 32" tires on.

So my question is, is there any reason to stick with 17" wheels, or should I go to 16" and save some money on the tires?

Thanks for any input.

BlueSubmarine

I guess technically you might save a little weight in rotating mass by switching to smaller rims, resulting in better handling, but the benefit would not be huge. I don't think the improvement is worth it to justify buying new tires AND rims though, unless you just want some better looking rims. However, if you save money OVERALL by switching to 16's, I would definitely make the switch.

jcs07jk

I went to 15's for cost savings in tires. I'm into my 35 KM2's and a set of 15 inch v5 wheels for 1250. Including spare

Dog Doc

Any drawbacks dropping from a 17" to a 16"...?

coltc2000

no real drawback in a 16" other than a metric size (285/75/16) vs 33x 11.5x 17

cppower

Optimum wheel diameter is 1/2 the diameter of the tire.

Mark Doiron

Ignoring the unmentioned tires size, in general you'll have more sidewall which will provide more space between the ground/rocks and the rim, but will suffer more flex. The former is good for a Jeep; the latter is generally irrelevant (For a Jeep. If you were talking a Mustang or such, that would be different).

Shadow's_Jeep

When I bought my JKU , I went from stock 16" rim's to 17 " black rim's from the Mopar catalog with Rbicon size tire's . if I had to do over again I would had stayed with the 16" rim size like black steel rim's from Pro Comp . And had a better selection of tire's in 16" range to pick from, and saved lot's of money.