Any problem going from 16" to 15" rims?

[Martinjmpr]

I'm looking at ways to do some mild building up on my truck, but also looking to save money. When I got the truck, I was elated to find out it had the optional 16" steel wheels and 265-70R16 tires.

However, I also noticed the tires will need replacing soon (truck has about 48k miles on it now) and when I looked at the price of the 16" tires I was shocked, to put it mildly!

So here's the question: If I can find a set of stock, 15" rims, would there be any issues with going back to 15" wheels? The price difference on tires is at least 15-20% or more and there are a wider variety of tires available in 15" as opposed to 16".

I assume I'd want to keep the overall diameter as close as possible to avoid speedo and odo errors (and according to the GPS my speedo is pretty much dead on now.) So, my math comes out like this: 265mm x .70 = 185.5mm sidewall height. 185.5mm sidewall height x 2 sidewalls = 371mm total sidewall. 371mm / 25.4 mm per inch = 14.60" total sidewall. 14.60" sidewall + 16" rim = 30.60" total diameter. A 30 x 9.5/15 would seem to be in order as it would only be 1/2" different from the stock tire.

Does this make sense? Or is there something I'm missing, like some advantage to 16" wheels that I haven't thought of?

 

[flyingwil]

You can go to 15's with no problem...

Here is a list of wheels that fit, if you need to go aftermarket.
http://www.ttora.com/wiki/index.php/Tire_and_Wheel_Fitment#15.22_Wheels_that_FIT:

 

[OldSven]

I went to 15's, they are really close to the calipers but don't touch. Close doesn't count, you know

 

[Mikey]

My friend just put a set of 15x8 cragars with 4.0 backspacing. We needed to add a 1/4 spacer to the front so that would make them mimic a 3.75 right? There is a thread on tacoma territory about what wheels work. IRC american racing steel 4.0s work it depends on the wheel.

 

[Martinjmpr]

Well, what I would try to do is find a set of stock Taco wheels. As most of you probably know, the stock wheel on the 04 Taco is a 15", and it would seem pretty silly to put different (larger) brake disks or calipers on the truck just because it's got bigger rims, so I assume that if I can find stock wheels, they'd have no compatibility issues. I just wanted to double check to see if maybe there was some weird reason that 16" were better.

My very first 4x4, a 1957 IHC Travelall, had oddball wheels (17.5", if you can believe that!) but all of my other 4wd vehicles have had 15" and I see no need to change now.

Just curious, but would a 15" wheel/tire be heavier or lighter than a 16" of the same diameter? I'm thinking, 15" = more tire and less wheel, but I don't neccessarily know if that means it would be heavier. In any case, I'm sure the difference would be negligible.

What's frustrating is that a few months ago there was a guy on TTORA who had a set of 15" taco wheels he was desperate to give away. I thought about it at the time, but figured I wouldn't have any place to keep them.