Thread: 9.00 16 Tyres

Originally Posted by garrycol

I have finally stopped procrastinating and bit the bullet and ordered my new tyres to go on my Mach 6 rims (8" wide). I looked seriously at Ron's Simex's but decided against them as I think they are a bit big for my particular engine to pull and am a little concerned about the actual amount of rubber on the road when on bitumen. I will rein supreme offroad though.

I ended up ordering 315/75R16 LT BFG MT KM2s and get them on Wed or Thurs. They run about 880mm in diameter which is about the same as the original 9.00x16s (so I do not need to get a spare saving a few $$$) and a little bigger than my current MRFs.

Apparently (an I don't know) they are pretty good offroad and reasonably good onroad and apparently are long lived for a MT - and though not relevant to a 101 are reasonably quiet.

As Ron has done I will let you know how they go.

Cheers

Garry

Garry,

Approx price would be good

We have someone interested in buying our Silverstone's so now we really need to look for an alternative tyre

Mrs hh

The quotes I was given was $430, $440 and $460 in Sydney and in the backwater that is Canberra prices ranged from $459 to $550.

You have a 101 so realise what the cost of fuel is - 540km round trip to Sydney will cost around around $150 (gas a bit cheaper) in the 101 so taking this into account I went the cheapest local option - Jax.

More than what I was expecting to pay for tyres but given all the good reviews is Ok. Mickey Thompson MTZs are similar and about $20-$30 cheaper. Maxxis Bighorns are a tad smaller and about $60 cheaper but do not have the same sort of positive reviews.

Garry

Make sure you get pics up once done. Its interesting seeing the "fatter" tyres on the 101. They almost make the tyre look smaller, even though the rolling diameter is the same.

Getting some new tyres fitted to the girlfriends Suzuki at our normal tyre place and I asked if they could source the Michelin XZL's and got quoted $775 just for the tyre

Originally Posted by garrycol

I just used a tyre calculator and punched 9.00x16 in and it came up with 866 - close enough to 900 for govt work. I appreciate actual 9.00x16 tyres might have a slightly different rolling dia.

So any tyre about that dia with the correct speed rating and load rating should fit - maybe will be a little wider than the the standard lugs. 35" tyres are also about the same size as well.

Most of the other tyres I have looked at on the net at about 900 dia have a Q speed rating which is good - like you I am not keen on even doing 80kph in the rain on conventional lug tyres.

Cheers

Some tyre calculators are crap and use numerical conversions - e.g. (9+9+16)" x 25.4 = 864 mm

The actual 9.00x16 tyre standard - as Diana's specs have shown - is 36" diameter - so ~915 mm.

The same goes for 7.50s - numerically they are 31", but in reality 32"

Picked up the new BFGs tyres today and had them put on my Mach 6 rims - as usual the tyre fitter managed to scratch the rims when on the balancing machine. The bit that tightens the wheel to the machine must have tightened up on the spokes rather than the hub - but of touch up paint and all is OK. I went white lettering in to save being flamed on here.

Here is a pic of one of the new wheels and tyres next to one of my worn MRFs. Sorry about the quality, my camera has an issue so had to use the phone.



While the new tyres look at lot bigger in fact they are 850mm in diameter (supposed to be 878mm) vs one of the half worn MRFs at 840mm - the one in the pic is only about 830mm).

The MRFs measured 7.5 inches across the thread while the BFGs are 9 inches.



Fitted them on.







First issue was that the wheel steps would not fit because of the spokes so on the drivers side I also used the special nuts from the passenger side to move the step further out and all worked OK. I will have to buy 6 more of the special extended nuts to put the passenger side on.



When putting the wheels on I noticed that there was more room around the steering rods etc so I measured the distance between the old wheel rim and the springs and then the same with the new wheel - the offset is much further out - even discounting the extra 1.5" wider rim. The bottom line is the track is now a bit wider - so some sort of flares will be needed on the rears (Bunnings for garden edging) and maybe a bit wider in the front.

So the tyres are only a couple of mm higher than standard 9.00x16 tyres but about 1.5" wider but the offset is also greater.

Driving - it really felt similar to the old MRFs - a little easier to steer but I have all new tyres are easy to steer until they bed in. In suburban streets it turns into corners a lot more quickly bit otherwise drives well - bounces around a bit on broken surfaces but the MRFs do also.

315/75R16 tyres will generally be close to the diameter of 9.00 x16 and I found Mickey Thomson MTZ, Toyo MTs very similar in performance and cost - Maxxiz Bighorns were a little cheaper and slightly smaller but did not seem to rate as well. I went the BFGs because they seemed to rate well offorad as well as onroad often getting 65,000km out off them. I guess we shall see.

I will keep the best two MRFs (half worn) as spares and keep the rest for "emergency" use.

Edit - the tread depth on new BFG MT KM2s is 15mm.

Cheers

Garry

Mach 6 wheels and cooper STT tyres - a set on Flickr

Mach 5 Wheels for Land Rover custom offset without spacers and other 4x4 vehicles beadlock and off road specialist custom made offsets to order spy-der-lock in the zu wheel don't have offsets like mach-5-wheels which are made by hand manufactured and

Originally Posted by 101 Ron

Mach 6 wheels and cooper STT tyres - a set on Flickr

More interested on the 101 in that ad - looks like a Radio Body

My tyres do stick out about as much as in the ad - Ron do yours stick out as much?? Is a combination of wider wheels and increased offset - drives OK. Ron is the offset any different on your widened wheels??

Garry