Always see used sets of 20" wheels off of newer rams for sale cheap on the local marketplace, and I know people have has success running them on 4x4 2nd gens. My truck is an ORE, so I'm even more confident they will fit without an issue.

My question is, how different is the ride quality between running the stock 17s and the 20s? Has anyone run both on the same truck? I am currently running 275/70/17 Cooper AT3's on my stock ORE wheels and I'd say the truck rides pretty well, but it's firm for sure. I'd hate to spend the money on the 20's only to find out the ride is total trash.

 

Sidewall is what determines ride, if you are just swapping tires. Don't know about the weight difference between wheel/tire combos though. (heavier is going to give you a harsher ride.) Bump you tire size (diameter) a bit, so you still have a reasonable sidewall height, and it should be ok.

 

275/70/17s are essentially 32's. They're 32.2 diameter. If I bought a set of 20's I'd try to run 305/55/20s.

The 17's have 7.6" of sidewall, while the 20's have 6.6" of sidewall so an inch less.

I know it's going to be worse, I just want to know how much worse.

 

My thought here is that we are speaking in relative terms, but who's to say that 6.6 inches of sidewall isn't sufficient to still give a reasonably compliant ride? I just don't know. Most people go to bigger wheels and keep the same overall diameter, so the sidewall shrinks considerably, producing a bigger difference.

Or conversely if you look up ride quality comparisons, most of them are on cars, where they are comparing something with 1" of sidewall or 2" of sidewall, which seems a far more important difference than 7.6 vs 6.6...

I also don't completely understand how the wheel/tire weight plays into this. Would a heavier wheel/tire make the same shock absorber act a little "softer" because it can't resist compression of more weight as easily?

 

You can read up on unsprung weight, that should clear up alot of your questions. I believe you'll find lighter wheel/tire combos have many positives. Having run 2014 ram 2500 wheels on my 2000 2500 truck with stock 1/2 ton tires 275/6020, the ride and performance was substantially better.

 

Can you give me your definition of "better"? Not trying to be an *** here, not everyone has the same definition.

 

Same very lumpy asphalt country road. Stock setup with steel wheels and heavy 10 ply equivalent tires - the truck would toss me around like a rag doll. Like remove your seat belt and bounce your head off the roof. Much smoother with the aluminum and LT tires (overall MUCH lighter combo). Had the same new shocks on the truck when I did the comparison... wasn't trying to do that comparison, just happened to do the same trip a couple days apart. Tire pressure was a little higher on the heavy set.

 

How did you go from 16's or 17's to 20's with LT tires and have less weight? Even going from steel to aluminum wouldn't help if you're adding all the extra mass.

 

The 20 rims were lighter, as were the tires. You can easily look up the tires, look at smaller E loads vs LT tires. Applying conjecture just breeds false conclusions, and creates skeptics...

 

The stock 17 inch wheels on my truck weigh 23.5lbs each. The 275/70/17's (OEM size) weigh 49lbs each. For a total of 72.5lbs.

The stock 20" chrome clad wheels off a newer ram weight roughly 35lbs. That means you'd have to find a tire that only weighs 37.5lbs to have an equal weight setup, lighter still to have a lighter setup. For reference, a 275/60r20 BFG KO2 (OEM size for the wheel) weighs 55lbs. A much less aggressive Continental Terraincontact weights 43lbs...still at least 5.5lbs over the weight limit.

Also, E load is a designation that indicates the number of plys in an LT tire. You can't compare E load vs LT because they are different designations. LT stands for "Light Truck" tires, and indicates a tire with higher gauge cords, often deeper tread, and just an overall more rugged design. One could make the case to purchase P metric tires for ride quality, but you didn't mention making such a transition.


Given that you don't appear to know the terminology difference between load rating and tire construction type, and given that I can't find any examples of 20" tires that weigh under 40lbs, I am inclined to be skeptical of your claims.