A text conversation today with Mr. Scout reminded me that I wrote this back in July but never posted it. For posterity’s sake, here we go: I happened upon a new Scout to the neighborhood and stopped to check it out.
Looking it over, I noticed it was sitting on more street-focused tires mounted on stock rims, and I liked the look of them. I’ve been thinking for a long time about switching out the Mud Terrains I’ve got for something quieter and more comfortable, given that my driving is mainly on-road. It was for this reason that I bought a set of four wheels from Brian H. a few years ago–dry-rotted tires on a set of freshly powder-coated steelies.
My hope was to put a narrower set of tires on her, something with a smoother ride but equal height, but it’s impossible to find anything narrower than 11.5″ wide at anything above 29″ tall unless I want an even more aggressive tread.
This Scout is on General Grabber AT2’s at LT33X12.5R15, which is wider than I was considering but taller than I expected. His Scout was sitting on a comparable lift and the size in the wells looked right (I’m trying to avoid putting tiny tires on a tall truck). They are also reasonably affordable vs. comparable BFGoodrich or Goodyear tires in the same size. I’m not in a financial position to buy them outright, but I think I could sell the Mud Terrains on Peer Pressure minus rims and make some of that money back this spring.
Neal in Boston says:
A scout I used to follow around here had a nice new set of the Yokohama Geolamdars that looked pretty good on stock (15″) rallye rims.
Anything still viable from Michelin, like the “X” line truck tires? Those were the last kind on my family’s Scout way back when, and we only ever ran street tires.
I remember begging my parents when I was 8 years old to get the white painted wagon wheels and Goodyear Trackers when they ordered our scout, but they got the chrome rallye rims with the Tiempos. They didn’t want to commit to the (wider?) off-Road setup.
I’ve also wondered about increased rim sizes. I’ve seen scouts advertised with 16’s. I haven’t looked too closely at those combos or researched lug patterns etc, but I wonder what tires and wheel combos are available to fill the wells on a mildly-lifted Scout like yours.
Good luck. Hopefully you can win the Craigslist lottery!
bill says:
I haven’t seen the Yokohamas up close, but they don’t come up in Tire Rack when I plug my wheel size in. Maybe I’m not expanding the search wide enough. The pickings are really slim for 15″ wheels, unfortunately and going up to 16″ would be possible but expensive. The only wheels I’m really interested in at that size are steelies from Omix-ADA and they’re expensive. It’s hard to find a 5×5.5 bolt pattern wheel that doesn’t look ridiculous–I’m pretty traditional at heart.
WHDS says:
Can someone tell me if they still answer questions about VIN#’s on the decoding page of this site? I posted about a week ago and it still says “Your comment is awaiting moderation.†Not trying to be impatient but just not many options out there that I can find. Any other ideas are welcome too. Thanks in advance WHDS.