Hi all,

I just traded my '01 Dakota for an '09 Ram 1500 SLT 4x4. I was looking the truck over last week and came across something I'm not sure about. The truck has the factory 20" chrome wheels which I like, but the door stickers all have 17" wheel info. Could this be an error from the factory, or has someone swapped out the wheels? The Car Fax says this was a fleet/rental before I got it. if the wheels have been swapped, what is this doing to my mileage - both fuel and odometer? What is the tire pressure supposed to be?

 

Well if the sticker says it has 17" wheels, but it has 20" wheels, then they more than likely got swapped out by someone. As far as fuel mileage, it's not really doing anything. Nothing worth worrying about anyway. You're going to be fine. Tire swaps happen all the time, your truck isn't going to fall apart. Your odometer is going to tick miles just like it would before. Again, it's not going to be that much of a difference. If you want it fixed all you have to do is go to the dealer and they can probably reprogram your speedo and odometer and everything else for a mere $400 or something ridiculous. If it was me, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

What size is the spare?
Folks changing wheels / tires rarely go to the extreeme of changing the spare as well.
A dealer can run your VIN to let you know what the truck came with as well.

 

Actually depending on the profile of the old wheels with the current, your truck may have registered less miles then it actually has clocked. My '05 Ram 1500 had the stock 17" rims which I swapped out two years later for the OEM 20's. After driving the same route to work for 10 years, I noticed when I had the 17" wheels on (which had close to 2" smaller profile) I would clock 22.3 miles one way to work. When I swapped them to the 20" wheels I was now only driving 20.5 miles one way to work. Larger diameter, less rotation, less distance registered, since your ECM doesn't know any better, for now, lol!

 

I'm not worried about the truck blowing up or anything, just curious as to what it's doing to the mileage. It's hard to say, but my best guess is that it isn't doing much. My bike shows about the same mileage from work to home, but I haven't checked it down to the tenth of a mile. Since this was a fleet vehicle, I'm wondering if it wasn't a dealer job to swap out the wheels, and possibly they made the proper adjustments? Just thought I'd ask anyway. Thanks for the responses.

 

I forgot to mention also, my speedometer also read 3-4 mph slower then the actual speed. In other words I was driving 45 mph, my speedometer would of read 48-49 mph.

 

Get a GPS and match it to your odometer. See if there is a difference.