steel vs alloy wheels
 

Is there a mpg gain to be had switching from steel to aluminum wheels? The ones I'm looking to get weigh about 8lbs lighter per wheel.

With no dollar consideration go w the weight reduction

there is a thread on here that experimented with the relationship between weight and mpg.

Long story short....for every 100 lbs you lose in weight, you gain 1 mpg.

keep in mind this is on the weight of the vehicle minus the wheels. The lighter wheels will net 1mpg at a lower weight(not sure on the weight) and will help with city driving, on the highway it would probably be negligible.

What about on hills? I drive 70 miles daily and I'm either going up or down. No level ground

The difference won't be measurable on a Ranger, but if you can get them cheap enough, I'd go alloy since acceleration and handling will also be slightly improved. I'd probably mount snow tires on the steelies and fuel efficient tires on the alloys so that they can be swapped easily as needed.

The longer you keep the vehicle, the more the investment in alloys pays off. Get the alloys used and you can sell them for what you paid for them when you go to sell the truck.

When I swap between alloys and steel on my car I can't tell any differences. The tires are a bigger factor in ride and handling.

Theoretically, maybe. Practically? No.

But the alloys will make the car look sexier. :cool:

What other differences are there in the wheels and what tires will be on each? Width of tire and weight of tire counts. Diameter of wheel counts. Eight pounds per wheel can be multiplied by 2 or even 4, depending. That's because it is rotational mass. So your're looking possible at a 64-128 pound *effect* from lighter wheels. And as long as long as you don't cancel that out with heavier, wider, stickier tires, you could see a modest benefit. BUT... if you compou d the benefit by getting same weight or lighter tires, narrower, and of the low rolling reststance grade... even more benefit.... check tirerack.com extensively.

I'd be running the same tire I run now. Same tire in winter and summer. Sadly it's a commercial traction tire. It's aggressive but it's a hard compound and gets better mpg than snow tires but obviously not max mpg. For my uses I really can't switch wheels and tires as needed. I'm running MasterCraft courser ct 235/75r15

Rim shape will make a big difference too. If the steel rims are mostly smooth, and the alloys have big gaping holes and/or flat surfaces spinning against the airflow, that could (probably would, over ~40mph) more than offset any gain you'd get from lighter weight.

(Whichever rims accept full hubcaps can give you the advantage of being able to attach as smooth a surface as you like.)

Depending on your driving conditions it won't add up to much improvement. Acceleration can be improved for stop and go driving. On the highway at steady speed there isn't much difference. The general trend from automakers has been towards aerodynamics rather than weight. I've cited Honda many times on this issue. The VX and HX of the 1990's were equipped with super light wheels. As you moved into the 2000's the first gen Insight and Civic Hybrid had more aerodynamic wheels instead of focusing on just weight. There are a lot of threads on Ecomodder about MPG improvements from wheel covers.

The ideal solution would be a lightweight wheel with a wheel cover. But if you have to spend a significant amount of $$$ on the light wheels, it would take a long time to return any savings vs. just adding wheel covers to your steel wheels.

I was kinda leaning towards the vintage et or ansen slots. They don't seem too aerodynamic though. I guess my steelies aren't too good either.

Any chance you could get good LLR tires and put snow chains on them when needed?

No I had some big long trail ta a long time ago on another truck. They're considered low resistance for a truck tire but I had many problems with them. My typical use involves too many boat ramps, dirt roads, fields with clay in them, wet grass... Tires stay. I do have a friend with the exact same truck but an equally aggressive all terrain tire and his gets 2 lessmpg than mine did. The rubber compound is harder on ccommercial traction tires which helps quite a bit.

Less rotation mass is always a good thing when it comes to acceleration, braking, and MPG. You should see very mild gains in city driving, though highway is unlikely to offer much. I can tell a difference between my 15" light-weight aluminum wheels VS 14" steel wheels in terms of off-the-line acceleration with similar tires. Though, I had a friend who used 17" big ol heavy aluminum wheels (all show) and, as an experiment, swapped my wheels. He noticed a HUGE difference in the get-up-and-go!

Though, another thing to keep in mind: You can't simply "snap on" wheel covers on most aluminum wheels. My Rota Slipstreams are gonna take some real custom work to get them aerodynamically sound. There are a lot of easy snap-on options for steelies.

If it can improve my acceleration then it's definitely worth it for me. My daily commute of 70 miles maybe has 5-7 miles of level or nearly level ground at most. The hills kill my mpg the most right now.