Giving my truck the right stance is something that I care about. Besides wanting out pickups to be capable work horses, we want our trucks to look the part too. For many, this means giving the truck an appropriately wide & athletic stance that looks tough and aggressive. This is usually done by having wheels and tires that stick out a little from the side of the truck.
How do your make truck tires stick out? For your tires to stick out, your wheels have to have the right offset. From a top view, offset is the location of the wheel mounting surface in relation to the center line of the wheel. This mounting surface needs to be closer to inside of the wheel than it was on the factory wheels for tires to stick out.
The exact offset you will want depends on several factors such as how wide of tire do you want and how far do you want it to stick out.
Wheel Offset
To better understand offset, from a top view the center line of a wheel becomes your reference point no matter where your wheel mounting surface ends up being. A wheel with a mounting surface that aligns perfectly with the center line of a wheel is considered to have a zero or neutral offset.
When your wheel mounting surface is closer to the outside or road side of the vehicle, then the wheel has a positive offset which would pull the wheels in closer to the vehicle compared to a zero offset.
Negative offset places the mounting surface of the wheel closer to the inside or brake caliper side of the vehicle, pushing the wheels further out and away from the vehicle compared to zero offset.
Offset is measured in millimeters (mm) so a +28 offset is a positive offset that places the wheel mounting surface 28 mm from the center line of the wheel closer to the outside (road side) of the wheel. A -28 offset is a negative offset that would place the mounting surface 28 mm from the center line of the wheel closer to the inside (brake side) of the wheel.
Generally speaking, most factory wheels, especially on trucks, have a positive offset to begin with. This means that you won’t necessarily have to get a wheel with negative offset to make your tires stick out. Rather, you just need to change the offset in the negative direction so that it becomes less positive, neutral, or negative.
To illustrate, lets say you have a factory wheel that is a 17 x 7.5 with 31MM offset. This means it is 17 inches in diameter by 7.5 inches wide with a positive offset of +31 mm from the wheel’s center line. If you wanted to keep everything else the same but wanted to make your tires stick out or poke 31 mm (about 1.22 inches) farther than where the outer edge of the stock tires rode, you would get a 17 x 7.5 wheel with 0MM offset (zero or neutral offset). If you wanted to make the tires stick out even further, you could get a wheel that is 17 x 7.5 with -31MM offset so your tires would stick out 62 mm (2.44 inches) farther than they did with the stock wheels. You get the picture.
If all you are changing is the the offset and nothing else, than it is pretty simple. However, if you start changing other things such as wheel widths and tire sizes, there it gets more complex very quickly.
Wheel Width
The width of a wheel plays a very big role in how offset will affect how much your tire will stick out. For example, lets say you have a wheel that is 7.5 inches wide with a zero offset and a 265 mm (10.43 inch) wide tire that lines up flush with the outer edge of your fender. If you install a wheel that is 8.5 inches wide with a zero offset and a tire that is 295 mm (11.61 inches) wide, the 8.5 inch wheel would stick out 1/2 inch more than the 7.5 inch wheel while the edge of the 295 mm wide tire would stick out 15 mm (0.59 inches) more than the 265 mm wide tire did. The interesting thing is that the wheel and tire would also stick that much further into the inside of the fender or vehicle.
To have the inner portion of the 295 mm wide tire run in about the same location as the 265 mm wide tire did, the wider 8.5 inch wheel would need to have an offset of -15 mm. This would make the outer edge of the 295 mm wide tire stick out 30 mm (1.18 inches) more than the 265 mm wide tire.
Backspacing
In addition to wheel offset, backspacing is another important thing to consider when you start looking at changing your wheels to make your tires stick out. Backspacing is the measurement from the wheel mounting surface to the inside edge of the wheel closest to the vehicle. If you have too much backspacing your wheel might end up rubbing chassis or suspension components on your truck.
If you have two wheels of the same size but one has zero offset and the other has positive offset, the wheel with positive offset will have more backspacing.
Two wheels of different sizes, but both with zero offset, will not have the same backspacing. The wider wheel will have more backspacing. If this causes the tire to set too far into the fender, a negative offset could move it out which will also cause the outer edge to stick out from the truck more.
Clearances
A change of a wheel offset, a wheel width, or a tire size will change the geometry and or location of the wheel and or tire. Any of these changes has the possibility of creating clearance issues between the tires and the body, suspension, steering components, or chassis of your truck. This needs to be considered when trying to make your tires stick out. Even if all you have done is change the offset of your wheels only to make them stick out, the may rub with some of the edges of your fender when you turn the wheels as they will make a wider arch. This could also be true when the suspension articulates and pushes the wheels higher into the fenders.
The extent of your clearance issues will depend on how much offset there is to push the wheels out, how wide the wheels & tires are, and how large in diameter the they are as well.
Some possibilities to address clearance issues are as follows:
- Trim your fenders if needed and if desired
- Remove chin spoilers, mud flaps, or other non essential pieces
- Replace your front bumper with a custom front bumper that gives more clearance (See my article on custom front bumpers here)
- Install a lift on your truck
Related Questions
What are wheel spacers? Wheel spacers are devices that are installed between a wheel hub assembly and a wheel mounting surface to increase the space between the two for increased clearance. They can make a wheel and tire stick out without purchasing or installing new wheels.