4WD Steel Wheels Vs Alloy Wheels - [ Which Way To Go ? ] 

Gotta love this guy

Good one Tim,thanks mate👌🏿👍🏾.

Thanks for the info Tim. Always a good night in the live chats. If you get a chance mate, put up a photo of the new wheel and tyre you are now running. Cheers mate. 👍🍺

Nice Tim, looked good in person the other day. I went the other way to steel because the alloys were chipped and started to look crap. Cheers Paul (Oliver's hill)

Like Tim says, he's seen it, I've done it, flogged a steel Sunraysia back into a shape that will again allow you to rebead a tyre and inflate it, but it never looks pretty. I have damaged an alloy rim but holly heck it took some doing. I was acending out of the Wenlock River crossing on Frenchman's track. The was a log involved, I attempted to go to the right, lost traction rear left dropped straight onto the end of the said log, boom as tyre immediately wedged of rim. Now it turns out this log had burried for many years where this exit had been cut in. Burried wood becomes petrified wood, it's harder than rock, twas like a steel probe,hence took chunck out of rimm that we couldn't rebead the tyre onto. Couldn't believe my luck when we arrived at Bamaga, wrecked vehicle there with the exact rim I required and at a reasonable $50.00. He wanted $200 with my tyre refitted, nah took rim and fitted it ourselves as I carried tyre pliers for just such occasions. At Sasha camp ground there was an old chap that fitted tyres for a living, laughed at us trying to belt tyre on rim with rubber hammer, he finally took it on with his hammer and had it on the rimm in no time, experience. Tim, I've run alloys since 2002 and aside from the instance above (extremely unlucky) had no other issues. Well a tad of a lie, I owned a 76 series briefly that I sourced 105 series dished steelies for (was talked into them, hmm) but only brief ownership as the 76 was just such a disappointment, very overrated vehicle. My ECU tuned ZD30 is biblically superior in every aspect to that darn 76 and no it wasnt the steelies that were the problem.

When I got my GU Patrol DX Ute back in Dec 2019, it had Mine Spec 16x6 Steel Rims with LT235/85R16 BF Muds with 50% Tread. Those 50% Tyres last Me about 7,000k's before I had to replace My Tyres, replaced with another set of BF Muds but was still experiencing excessive wear on my tyres. I finally went down the path or putting a set of Toyo Open Country AT on thinking maybe the Mud Tyre Compound was too soft, but didn't get even 15,000k's on the Toyo's. I think the 235/85R16 Tyre width was too narrow for the 3.5T weight of my Ute, so finally purchased a 2nd Hand Set of S4 GU Patrol 17x8 Alloy Rims, and put a set of Black Bear 275/65r17 All Terrain II's tyres on those. I'm now over 35,000k's on the Black Bear's and visually . . . the Black Bear Tyre Tread Depth looks as good as the day I put the Black Bear's on. I'm not a hard rocky tracks type of person, but 18 months on the Black Bear's have done well out around Lithgow's 4wd Areas, and they did do well one night on a fresh Gradded forestry trail in heavy down poor of rain. So I have been very happy with my change to the 17x8 Alloy Rims and 275/65r17 Black Bears All Terrain II Tyres . . . believe they bear the Patrol's 3.5T weight a hell a lot better.

Hey Tim. Great information as usual. Was wondering if you had patches for sale? Would love to buy some if you do.

The biggest issue with alloy is flex breaking studs. Over corrugations alloy will move and usually at speed regardless of your nut tension.

Hey mate any thoughts on the episode when Roothy and Kenny went up billy goats with the caravan on the back of the dual cab hilux. They went up not down. They made it up.

Hey mate, which brand did you go with for your alloys? And in your mission to reduce weight, what did you find made the biggest difference? Thanks mate.

The wheel nuts loosening off I’ve only seen happen when you use the steel/factory wheel nuts on alloy wheels

I bent a steel rim on Fraser … blow torch and sledgehammer once home to see how hard it was to bend back. Bloody difficult.

Hay buddy

I made that change a few yrs back because of weight.