I am looking for winter wheels. I found some 275/60/17 F-150 wheels, but those come out to 30". Our OEM wheels (295/35/18) are only 26". That will throw my speedometer off by about 14% according to my calculations. Do our trucks have speedometer gears that we can easily swap out for situations like this? Do I have any other options other than finding a better size?

 

You correct the speedo in the PCM or it the chip

Doug

 

The stock tires are 295/45-18, which comes out to 28.4" .

For winter I am using 275/60-17 Nokian WRs on FX4 rims. You are correct; they are 30" in diameter. This comes out to about 5% larger than stock, so 60mph registers as 57mph. The ride is a little better; handling is less sharp. I haven't noticed much difference in shifting of the tranny. There is a noticeable drop in off-the-line power, since I am in effect changing my rear gearing from 3.73 to 3.53. Otherwise no problems.

The local shops want about a hundred bucks for recalibrating the ECM for the tire change, so I haven't had it done yet. I'm debating whether to have JDM burn me a 2-sided flip chip with summer-performance / winter-safety profiles. I still haven't had the nerve to destroy the warranty on a 6 month old truck. I'll probably call around some more to see if I can find a shop who will recalibrate things for about $40...

 

I think that less torque would be a good thing in the snow.

Where did you get the fx4 rims, and how much do they cost?

 

eBay. Sets pop up often. I probably paid more than I should have, but I wanted to get it over with. You can find them cheaper. I paid about $550 (ie $137 ea) for a set of new take-offs without tires. They are Ford OEM, clearcoated aluminum with the blue oval logo in the center caps. The stock tires are awful Goodyear RT/S, so I would have paid extra shipping and discarded them anyway. They look good on the truck, kind of like the 03 wheels.

There are lots of other wheels on eBay. Search for "F150 wheels" to pull them all up.

 

check the classifieds on here
theres always sets on it,ive seen
a set of take offs from a supercrew for 300
once.

 

This is getting to be really expensive. I priced out those Nokian WR tires.

$147/ea for 255/70/16 $588
$178/ea for 275/60/17 $712

I pay less for my Nitto drag radials for the Mustang. It's hard to rationalize spending $1200 for wheels that will be used for 3 months of the year. I might as well buy an old beater instead.