[MightGetDirty]

I am in the midst of buying some new street-only wheels for my NGV, so that I can put some proper MTs on the stock alloys that I currently have..

I have been having some troubles though finding a wheel which is both strong and within the legal width per my tyre placard. I know later models could have 18x7J rims fitted as an option, but mine and my placard only has 17x6.5J so I'm stuck with max 7.5" width rims unless I find/get a new tyre placard. The best ones I could find (a set of alloys designed for commercial vans) have a wheel load rating of 775kg.

Now here's my question: I have so far been trying to get wheels with a wheel load rating higher than the tyre load rating shown on the tyre placard (ie. greater than 800kg)... But from my internet sleuthing, I've read that to determine the minimum wheel load for rims, one can also take the car's Gross Axle Weight Rating and divide that by 2 (front or rear axle - whichever's the highest).

According to the GAWRs in the owners manual, the min wheel load I need is actually far less than 800kg. I'd like to take the more conservative value here but it has proven difficult to find any aftermarket rims with higher load without at least upping the width to 8". Can anyone provide their 2c of experience on wheels - how I should be determining min load for my new rims, whether only 25kg off tyre load rating is "good enough" practically, any legalities I should be aware of (I can only find in the ADRs ones for difference in width and track), etc.

TIA!

[fordem]

Just a question - shouldn't the GVM be the deciding factor in your analysis? Using the numbers you have posted, 800kg x 4 or 3200kg is I believe well over the GVM.

[Gwagensteve]

You're overthinking it.

Basically, if the sum of load rating for the four wheels exceeds the vehicle's GVM, you're good to go. This will almost always be the case (by a wide margin) but a quick confirmation is all that's required.

Tyre load rating has no bearing on this and there is no need or reason to try and "match" tyre load and rim load ratings.

Most general purpose aftermarket rims have very high load ratings as the manufacturer doesn't know what you're putting it on so they need to ensure they won't fail.
Tyre load ratings are also generally way higher than the GVM of the vehicle/4. this is especially true now cars are getting much, much heavier than they were.

[MightGetDirty]

fordem wrote:

Just a question - shouldn't the GVM be the deciding factor in your analysis? Using the numbers you have posted, 800kg x 4 or 3200kg is I believe well over the GVM.

Yes the min tyre load rating x 4 is well over the JT's GVM (2100kg) but I was just running my decision making based on the placard (as it was more conservative) until I started running into troubles sourcing a rim that could meet it along with the local rules here, let alone a rim with a design I liked. Then I looked into how to find a vehicle's wheel load ratings deeper, then I got a little unsure of myself.

There is surprisingly little info around on how to check and determine wheel load ratings. I wonder whether that is partly why you hear of people in big SUVs buying cheap wheels that go egg-shaped as soon as they go down the road and hit a pothole.

Gwagensteve wrote:

You're overthinking it.

Gwagensteve wrote:

Tyre load rating has no bearing on this and there is no need or reason to try and "match" tyre load and rim load ratings.

Great to know - I tend to overthink and overkill things sometimes.

Gwagensteve wrote:

Basically, if the sum of load rating for the four wheels exceeds the vehicle's GVM, you're good to go. This will almost always be the case (by a wide margin) but a quick confirmation is all that's required.

That's good to hear. It sounds like if one wants to be pedantic (and can find the info for it) they can use the GAWR/2 for min wheel load, or just get from rego the GVM and /4.. which shouldn't be that far off while being a lot more easy to do.

I forgot to put in my original post, but for others future reference the GAWRs for the JT per my owners manual are below.
3 Door:

• Front: 970kg
• Rear: 1090kg

5 Door:

• Front: 1050kg
• Rear: 1210kg

I believe the lowest rated wheel I came across was one with 645kg, which exceeds both (but I won't be getting that one though because the design was horrible!). Glad to know I have a lot more margin and choice to play with now than what I first thought.

Thanks for both your inputs to set me straight! Guess I'll be buying wheels sometime soon then. ^^