VZ Crewman (3.6 V6) - Load Rated wheels, tyres, or both???

[figjam]

Well, I'll beef hooked.
Nowhere on my 16" steelie spare is anything about width, rating or even where it is made. As I said before I can't see anything about load rating on my OEM alloys.
Maybe aftermarket wheels have to have it, whereas OEMs don't as they satisfy the requirments of the vehicle manufacturer.
I also have a Ford Terrorstory, I know that owners of these are always getting their knickers in a knot about load rated tyres and wheels, but this forum has an absence on that subject.

Question for Black Bug......have you made a decision yet as to what you are fitting ?

 

[nita]

Hi All,

Just Re your crewman. I recently purchased one myself. What I purchased had 18 inch after market rims and Low profile tyres.

The problem is that Low profile tyres and rims aren't load rated.

Crewmans (not the V8's just the V6's due to the load capacity which is different - my only thought is who'd use the extra fuel with a V8!) require BOTH load rated tyres and rims to be road legal across Australia.

IE when your insurance company asks you if your vehicle is roadworthy and you say yes and technically its not, they won't pay out on the accident - even if unrelated to the accident as they vehicle isn't deemed to be roadworthy.

Any rims placed on a crewman MUST be 950 at an absolute minimum. This will be stamped inside the rims. Then they must have a load rated tyre as well.

Hope this helps - this just took us 5 weeks to solve the problem that we had and to find genuine rims etc. So I hope you can learn and take the knoweledge from my experience!

 

[dergy]

Ok, my 2-bobs worth from anecdotal information. I had same predicament, I actually bought a VZ S Crewman with the wrong wheels/tyres, shouldn't have passed roadworthy.

A VZ SS Crewman will have 225/55R17 97H tyres, meaning 730kg/tyre = 2920 kg total. Given a GVM=2535 (for SS V8), and a kerb mass of 1820, means you can carry payload including passengers of only 715kg. Which is why the SS can have lower profile / lower load rating tyres, and larger rims. Note the GVM is well within the maximum wheel/tyre weight (2535 vs 2920). The rear axle load is 1460 kg (matching the tyre spec).

A VZ S Crewman has the 1-tonne chassis, which is why it ships from the factory with 16" steel rims and 104 rated tyres with 900kg capacity = 3600kg total. It has a payload of 1087 kgs. All this means you need stronger wheels and tyres. GVM to wheel/tyre load is 2826 v 3600. the rear axle load also matches the tyre spec of 1800kg

Now, owning a Crewman, I have and will likely never carry over a tonne in payload (including passengers). A ute load of firewood is only 500-600kg for a cubic metre. But also remember that when you're towing, 10% of the towing weight is transferred to the car via the ball (eg. a 2000kg caravan adds 200kg to the payload). But changing to the 225/55R17 SS rims (for example) will bring your wheel bearing capacity down from 3600kg to 2920kg, which is much closer to the 2826 kg capacity of the VZ S crewman. Not much headroom there.

To summarise, on an S crewman, by downsizing the wheels and tyres to SS spec means you can carry less payload and with greater risk. And you will be unroadworthy, as your tyre placard will indicate the larger wheel/tyres.

Some resources for you:
Load Index & Speed Symbol - Info - Bob Jane T-Marts
Car Bibles : The Wheel and Tyre Bible