It doesn't matter. It' the OD of the tires that matter not the rims. I tow a 6000 lbs TT before loaded on 35's. My next tires will be back down to 33's which towed great. Your tires are 32-ish, with a feather lightweight trailer, you're good to go.
Not sure how OD is important, however reading alot on this forum has me respecting your opinion. Tire Max load single is 2469. I assume times 4 (9876) plus the truck wt and passengers? Is that correct. I need tires badly but want to make sure I am thinking ahead for camper trailer next summer. What would be a max trailer wt given the circumstances?
I think he was hoping to steer me into selling me smaller rims as well new tires. Talking about potholes and bent rims. Which is really an issue even when not towing. My size is a special order also meaning no deal could be closed without going smaller...
Not sure how OD is important, however reading alot on this forum has me respecting your opinion. Tire Max load single is 2469. I assume times 4 (9876) plus the truck wt and passengers? Is that correct. I need tires badly but want to make sure I am thinking ahead for camper trailer next summer. What would be a max trailer wt given the circumstances?
Leverage.... Think of it this way, if you have a 32" OD tire, does it really matter if the wheel is 15" or 26" if the OD of the tire is still 32"? Of course not... So, what else is different? Wheel/Tire weight and that affects your unsprung weight or whatever they're calling it now, it basically affects the torque needed to start moving a still object. Honestly, I thought in theory that the overall weight affected it more than the OD, I was wrong.
When I changed from OEM tires to 325/60-18 33" Nitto Terra Grapplers, the OD was pretty close to the same and the new tires were about 20-lbs ea heavier. This did affect my towing a bit but not really enough to worry about. So I thought "Heck, as long as I keep the weight the same I should be able to change to 35's". LouFish over on TitanTalk told me I was mistaken but I doubted him. So on this last change I went from 325/60-18 33" Nitto Terra Grappler with heavy steel belts and 100% Rubber to 325/65-18 35" Cooper Discoverer STT w/ TEK3 which is Cooper's term for Nylon Belts and Silica based rubber to provide weight reduction. To give you an idea of the difference, I was constantly pulling bent Drywall Screws and Roofing Nails out of the Terra Grapplers and never once had to add any air in the 2-yrs or whatever that I had them, they started with 42-psi and came off with 42-psi with never touching an air pump. The first Roofing Nail these Coopers encountered punched clean through and gave me a flat that I had to take in and have patched so I've been avoiding the construction areas since.
With both tires off the rim, I picked them both up side by side several times and I could not feel a difference in weight. Even now when taking them off and back on they don't feel any heavier than the Nitto did. But man, did they ever kill my towing. I have to keep her under 65mph if I want to see 4th gear very much because any faster and she wants to run in 3rd gear. With the other tires I could cruise 80mph while staying in 4th.
So, the bottom line is you want to watch your total wheel/tire weight and the tire's OD. LouFish was exactly right, the leverage caused by an extra 1" of Outside Tire Radius has more impact than 20-lbs heavier does.
With a 5,000-lbs trailer, you'll likely never care. My boat was heavier than that and I couldn't even tell it was back there except on really windy days.
The three items I'd be watching are outside diameter, load handling capability, and weight of each tire/wheel combination. Increasing the outside diameter of the tire will be like putting lower gears in your truck, which will adversely impact towing ability. So, try to stay close to stock diameter overall (not the wheel, but the wheel plus the tire). Load handling capability is the maximum load that each tire can handle; personally, I wouldn't go any lower than the OEM tires, and try to go higher if possible. And tire weight has already been discussed by Pops, so you have the expert opinion on that. However, my experience has always been that the larger wheels with low profile tires are typically much heavier than the smaller wheels with higher profile tires. Pops, I think your experience has been with more off-road tires, rather than the size the OP is considering, which is a very low profile tire; this could turn out to be much heavier than stock, which would have an adverse impact on towing, as well as having other impacts on overall driveability, even without towing.
Keith
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... However, my experience has always been that the larger wheels with low profile tires are typically much heavier than the smaller wheels with higher profile tires. Pops, I think your experience has been with more off-road tires, rather than the size the OP is considering, which is a very low profile tire; this could turn out to be much heavier than stock, which would have an adverse impact on towing, as well as having other impacts on overall driveability, even without towing.
Keith
From what I've been noticing is some low profile tires sometimes have thicker sidewalls and are as heavy as higher profile tires, it seems to totally depend on the tire brand/model. I've also been noticing wheels manufacturers offering up lighter weight wheel composistions and designs to the point that some of them would be dangers to tow with on a 1/2-ton SUV.
For the offroad tire setups it seems that the wheel diameter makes very little difference in the overwall weight because the tires are heavy enough to be close to the same weight per square inch as the wheel. At least, that's the way it's been appearing to me.
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2005 Nissan Armada LE
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