Even though the world is slowly moving towards eco-friendly trends that aim to put cars on the road that create fewer fuel emissions, SUVs, RVs, and light trucks are growing more popular in the United States. In 2018, Ford, one of America’s largest automotive manufacturers, began rolling back their production on sedans and town cars. Today, they exclusively sell pickups, SUVs, and crossovers.
According to the New York Times, SUVs, heavy pickups, and similar-sized vehicles have been outselling sedans since 2019. Today, over 47% of cars on American roads are light trucks, and a considerable chunk of them have dual tires.
If you want to buy a larger vehicle, you’ll probably want to look at its spec sheet before you visit the car lot. People often wonder if the large vehicle they want can pull speedboats, campers, or farming equipment. One of the most common features they’ll encounter when shopping for heavy vehicles is dually tires, which increases the pulling performance of a car by increasing its contact with the road.
Maintaining Dually Tires
The stability and power of a dually truck can give any driver the confidence to pull weighty loads in a well-controlled manner. However, with great power comes great responsibility, and dually trucks require a bit more maintenance than their four-wheeled counterparts. If you don’t know how to rotate dual rear tires, your truck’s rear wheels might develop unequal levels of wear.
How to Rotate Dually Tires
How to properly rotate tires? Before you can rotate dual tires, you have to do a bit of prep work. You will need:
- An impact or lug wrench
- A hydraulic jack
- A torque wrench
- An outdoor or indoor open space
Set Up Your truck
Before suspending your truck using your hydraulic jack, set the transmission to park and ensure that the parking brake light is engaged. If you have a standard transmission dually truck, put it in first gear with the parking brake active.
Suspend Your Truck from the Ground
Place your hydraulic jack under the midpoint of the front axle of your truck, and begin pumping. Next, grab the jack stands and place it beneath the axle in the inner part of the wheels, then place the front axle against them. After doing these steps correctly, your front tires should not be touching the ground (find our guide – How To Rotate Front Wheel Drive Tires).
After jacking up your front tires, it’s time to pay your rear wheels some attention. Once again, place two jack stands in the inner part of the rear wheels, precisely under the axle, and then lower the back end of your truck onto them.
Learn more in our guide – How to Rotate Your Tires with a Jack.
Change the Position of Your Rear Wheels
Depending on the loads your truck carries, the tire rotation of your outside rear wheel can be different from the inner wheel, leading to a shorter tire life for one of the two. Use your impact or lug wrench to take away the lugs from the four tires. After doing this step, you should have six free wheels on your hands.
Make sure you remember the original position of these wheels. Write them down with pen and paper if necessary.
Move the outer rear wheels to the inside rear position and the inner rear wheels to the front end. Your former front wheels will become your new outer rear tires. Tighten all your wheel’s lugs in cross-over configuration, and perform a final check using a torque wrench.
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Lower Your Truck
Your truck is now ready to use. Lower it by adding height to the rear axle and then taking away the jack stands from the inner wheels. Repeat the same procedure on the front axle, and you’re ready to go.
What Are Dually Tires?
Dually is slang for a vehicle with dual rear tires. Dually tires are one of the most common features of semis, pickup trucks, and RVs. Manufacturers like General Motors, Chevrolet, and Ford are famous for putting dual rear tires on their non-commercial vehicles.
Cars with dually tires often have a muscular widebody stance and sizable fenders. You typically won’t find them in the cramped city streets of Los Angeles and New York; their habitat is the open roads of states with winding countrysides such as Montana, Texas, and Arizona.
Here are a few examples of light trucks with dually tires:
- 2020 Chevrolet Silverado 3500HD
- Ford F-450 Super Duty
- GMC Sierra 3500HD
- Dodge Ram 3500HD
Dually tires help light trucks hold their value by reducing the strain on its engine. If a vehicle has better contact with the road, its engine won’t have to work as hard when pulling heavy cargo over long distances.
Why Would Manufacturers Put Dual Rear Wheels on Trucks?
Light trucks with a dually configuration can pull nearly twice as much as their two-rear-wheel counterparts for much less fuel.
For example, the 2021 Ford F-350 Super Duty can tow up to 32,000 pounds with a considerable amount of strain. However, the 2021 Ford F-450 can tow up to 35,000 pounds easily. The latest model Chevrolet Silverado 3500HD can tow 5,500 more pounds over its two-rear-wheel SRW counterpart, and with a gooseneck hitch, that number goes up to 14,000.
Manufacturers outfit their dually trucks with beefier and more efficient braking systems because they need more stopping power for their intended use. Also, heavy-duty suspension systems with sport-grade shock absorbers come with the base-level models of dually trucks. Ranchers often use them to transport cattle and equipment across uneven tracks and rough roads.
Are You Thinking of Buying a Dually Truck?
A dual truck has a much larger payload and towing capacity than its two-rear-wheel counterparts, so buyers often use them to expand their fleet of heavy machinery pullers.
Aside from their commercial use, dually trucks also have many residential applications. People who run small to medium contracting and homebuilding businesses can use them to haul materials and supplies.
Business People who live in rural communities often use trucks daily to transport farming materials, cows, and machinery to customers in their local state. Dually trucks also have a litany of private uses, such as pulling speedboats, equestrian horses, and jet skis, since most of them can haul more than 20,000 pounds of cargo.
Dually trucks can be more practical than SUVs for many families as more RVs come out with larger bodies and higher towing capacities. RVs with dual rear wheels can grant even the most refined families a taste of the rugged outdoors as they can lug dirt bikes, multiple bicycles, and fifth-wheel campers on its back hitches.
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