Wheel rims

[Nigelw]

Steel wheel or alloy wheels?

Hit upon a dilemma with my truck as it may need to become my daily driver and not just my joy toy, so therefore I think commuting on a set of Cooper STT might be a little harsh on both fuel consumption and tarmac will see a good set of primarily off road tyres ruined quite quick, plan is to get a second set of wheels but which ones?

I have the coopers on my Deep Dish alloys but I suppose it must come down to strength of the rims for applications, I think the coopers look great on the alloys but are the alloys up to some good battering off road? would I be better to get a road biased wheel and tyre package with steel rims and then swap the road tyres onto the alloys and the coopers onto the steels or is there so little difference in the strengths that I could just as well find a good set of alloys and just get them shod with road rubber.

Not something I have had to think much on but I'm sure the collective knowledge knows a lot more than me

[Eightpot]

I used cooper stt on a daily basis and fuel consumption was fine.

Even if it does suffer a little its probably cheaper than buying another set of rims/tyres?

[Maverik]

Well I run Grabber AT2's and BFG AT's and BFG Mud terrains on my vehicles presently...

I like the BFG AT's as they are relatively quiet but have a semi aggressive tread for doing a bit of everything. The Grabbers have done a good 20k and are about 1/3 worn down. I've got quite wide ones on the 90 and the handling when hitting puddles at speed is frightening, so I wouldn't recommend getting any "wide" AT tyres.

The MT's are on the 110 and are a bit noisy, but only with the windows down and I do a lot of long journeys in that truck and I think the handling all around is pretty good considering they are a pretty aggressive terrain tyre.

I run everything on steel rims. I'd buy more of all 3 types.

[Nigelw]

I stayed "narrow" with 235/85 16 size with the coopers but it is more a bug bear on fuel consumption in the future if I change jobs, current situation has money enough and time to buy what I want but after the potential move I will not have say €600 free to buy new wheels and tyres and then budgeting on fuel consumption too, currently non existent but should not be any worse than 11L/100Kms I don't think? But if I can get that down to 9.5/10L/100Kms then even better, long term savings and still have the coopers for play days.

[Retroanaconda]

When my 90 became more of a general use car I changed the wheels and tyres to a more suitable combination. I have Michelin road pattern tyres in 7.50R16 on a set of standard Land Rover (HD) "Wolf" rims, the tubeless version. This, combined with sensible driving and the fairly standard nature of my vehicle means I get a good consistent MPG. Over the last month (~1,500 miles) I have averaged 32.29mpg, that's 8.74 l/100km in your money. My driving is a mix of fast A-road and windy-windy back road, with a bias toward the former I would say.

I don't know what your car's setup is with regard to engine, running weight, body style, external accessories etc. but you should be able to achieve a fair improvement by switching to a good road pattern. I went from a set of 245/75/R16 Trac-Edges to the current tyres and back then I was averaging about 30mpg, though there were too many other variables that changed at the same time to attribute that to just the tyres. There are of course a multitude of other factors that can affect things, driving style being up there amongst them.

I know my MPG figures are spot on as I have a nifty little app on the phone which keeps track of it all, and it adjusts for tyre/speedo discrepancy which I've checked against several GPS units. It's about as accurate as you can be when measuring your consumption!

As for alloys/steels it's completely up to you. I like the look of steel wheels on a "slightly tatty" commercial bodied Land Rover like mine, but on a nice station wagon or the like I can see that alloys would look good. What's always put me off having two sets of wheels is the hassle of changing them, but I guess it depends how often you intend to use the car for something that requires the off-road tyres fitting, and of course storing them.

[UdderlyOffroad]

If you were in the UK you could pick up a set steelies with something road-biased for not much on the bay, as people who buy MT wheel+tyre packages flog off their old set. Not very helpful I know!

However, a quick google search reveals that Belgium doesn't require winter tyres, but recommends them. Might that figure in your search? I.e. a set with a 'winter rating' for mud + winter, and an everyday/summer set?

Personally, I don't like alloys on off-road vehicles, period. But I know I'm in a minority here!

[Nigelw]

The coopers are M+S rated so should cover me for Germany and the likes.

This is all on a 1992 200Tdi Discovery with just about stock everything at the moment, weight wise it is just a bare vehicle really as H/D bumper weights are cancelled out by the lack of rear seating and unnecessary clutter.

Will have a good think about it but from most replies there seems to be little in it as far as the tread pattern alone goes.

Will be monitoring it closely when start driving around in a few weeks time.

Although I am told there are good gains to be had from removing the viscous fan and going electric it is off and will stay off for now, maybe go electric after the winter?

[Retroanaconda]

I wouldn't bother to be honest. I used to have an electric fan on mine, went back to the viscous a while back. Never noticed any difference that I could attribute to that, in fact the MPG is now better as I described above - but this will be for other reasons.

The only advantage of the electric that I miss was the engine bay access, but I haven't needed to be fiddling around in there yet (touch wood!).