2012 17" wheels on 2014, a perfect fit?

[photowrite]

In about an hour I'm wanting to make a 200+ mile round trip to buy some take-off 17" aluminum Ram wheels for my 2014 2500. I've read old threads and think I'm safe but would love and appreciate some confirmation before I spend my time and money to fetch these wheels.

I don't like wheels/tires that extended beyond the body, so I much prefer OE wheels with the perfect fit and backspacing. The wheels I want to buy are from a 2012 Cummins.

Was the OE backspacing the same (6.25") in both 2012 and 2014?

Thanks

James

 

[JR]

The 12's do have a 6.25" Back spacing. Are your 14 wheels 17" as well?

 

[photowrite]

Thanks for the fast reply.

No, my 2014 wheels are 18" steel. I will likely run some 18" tires in the stock 275/70R18 size someday... I like the size, a solid 33" tire, not too wide, and lots of tread choices. But I generally prefer more sidewall and less wheel (off-highway travel), and have some 17" tires from another truck I'd like to put on the 2014 2500. Is there a reason I can't do that?

 

[JR]

There is no reason you can't provided the backspacing is similar. I think this is especially important if you have the new rear suspension that came out in 14. Keep in mind your OEM 18" tires are app. 33", while an OEM sized 17 inch wheel/tire combo (265/70/17) is around 31.6".
You would have to step up to around a 285/70/17 to be close to the same height, or have your speedometer recalibrated for the shorter size. I'm really not sure what the backspacing on your 18" wheels are.

I am running a set of 17" wheels off of a 12 on my 98 and I would love to find a set of 18" take offs. Haven't had much luck finding any locally.

 

[RustyJC]

When Dodge went from 16" to 17" wheels, it was to clear larger disc brakes which moved the calipers farther out radially. Is this the case with the 2014s with the move to 18" wheels as well? The 16" wheels wouldn't fit a 2003 up which originally came with 17" wheels as the 16" wheels would hit the disc brake calipers. I don't know if that's the case with trying to go back to 17" wheels on your truck, but it's certainly one more thing to check.

Rusty

 

[JR]

Good point Rusty, but I thought you could still order the 14s with 17" wheels? At least you can with the 3500s, but maybe not with the 2500s...

 

[photowrite]

There is no reason you can't provided the backspacing is similar. I think this is especially important if you have the new rear suspension that came out in 14. Keep in mind your OEM 18" tires are app. 33", while an OEM sized 17 inch wheel/tire combo (265/70/17) is around 31.6".

Yep, I'm quite a light-truck tire guru, I know the approx. overall diameter of my stock 275s (again, a size and diameter I like, 33”), and will not be running a shorter tire like a 265... Heck, I don't like to run a 31.5-32" tire (265 or other) on any of my trucks, they all run 33s, a sweet, near perfect diameter in my opinion.

You would have to step up to around a 285/70/17 to be close to the same height, or have your speedometer recalibrated for the shorter size. I'm really not sure what the backspacing on your 18" wheels are.

Yes sir, that's a nice size, I have 285/70R17s for my Tundra as well as 285/75R16 for my 4Runner. The 33" size on the Tundra is OE, and speedo/odometer are correct...on the 4Runner the speedo is about 4 mph slow, I'm okay with it and have measured both the speedo and odometer inaccuracies.

I am running a set of 17" wheels off of a 12 on my 98 and I would love to find a set of 18" take offs. Haven't had much luck finding any locally.

I've never been a fan of fashionably tall wheels, preferring to run the OE diameter wheel (or smaller) so I have more tire to work with. I understand where a shorter, stiffer sidewall can be a benefit, but all my 4WDs see off-highway travel and short, stiff sidewalls are not great for ride, traction (with lower air pressure), or protecting the wheel and tire from damage. I run 17" wheels on a second generation Tundra instead of the common 18s, one of the few 17s that will fit, a forged aluminum OE wheel. Though I do have a set of 18" take-off that I may run someday, as the Tundra has a camper and is super heavy, it would likely benefit from a 275/70R18 setup.

 

[photowrite]

When Dodge went from 16" to 17" wheels, it was to clear larger disc brakes which moved the calipers farther out radially.

Agreed, that is what happens on most platforms... Other than a super-sized wheel like the currently popular 20s, OEMs increase the wheels sizes across a line of trucks for a reason.

Is this the case with the 2014s with the move to 18" wheels as well? The 16" wheels wouldn't fit a 2003 up which originally came with 17" wheels as the 16" wheels would hit the disc brake calipers. I don't know if that's the case with trying to go back to 17" wheels on your truck, but it's certainly one more thing to check. Rusty

I was pretty sure that recent OE 17" wheels would fit, but not positive, hence my post here for input which I greatly appreciate. Nobody was (yet) able to say with certainty that OE 17s would fit, so before I spent my afternoon driving 240 miles roundtrip I did do come more checking...

Internet searches showed similar questions but no definitive answers. Maybe the 2014 trucks are too new, so few truly know the answer, in addition to the fact that most people are up-sizing wheels and tires not wanting to go to a smaller wheel. I called a local Dodge dealer and a parts guy was very helpful, looking up the front and rear rotors and calipers for a 2500, both 2012 & 2014... he said they did not change, they are the same number. This was encouraging and I almost jumped in the truck for a wheel buying road trip. Then I did some backup research online trying to build a new 2500 Cummins on NADA.com. Even a stripped Tradesman, both 2WD and 4WD, were automatically coming with 18" wheels, not 17 inch. This was a red flag.

Crawling under my truck with a tape I confirmed that the backspacing on my OE 18" steel wheels is approx. 6.25 inches. The caliper clearance on the rear axle with 18s (over 1 inch) looked fine, I'm confident 17s would fit on the rear. The caliper clearance on the front is closer...it was difficult to see and measure around the control arm, but the clearance looks like about 3/4 inch. An OE 17" wheel might fit, just, but I'm not confident enough that I want to drive hundreds of miles and spend hundreds of dollars to check.

In the long run, the stock 275/70R18 size may be hard to beat, there are many tread choices in this size and they carry lots of weight for a SRW light-truck tire, so I may just forget this 17" idea. A few weeks ago I bought a set of '13 OE Ram aluminum 18" take-offs from a Craigslist seller, the ones that look like Horseshoes welded together (standard on the 3500 SRW Laramie). A friend in Portland procured them for me and I'll get them in a few weeks when we pass that way on a car trip.

I wanted 17s because I have a set of 255/80R17E Cooper S/T MAXX tires I'm testing, they are currently on my V8, geared & locker AWD 4Runner. I'm been thinking of swapping them to the new Ram, both to continue testing the tires but also to see if I will be able to pickup a little extra mpg with the slightly narrower tire.

The research continues….

James