Off road with 20" wheels

[stangrp]

Hi, My GL 350CDI has 275/55 R20 wheels, we are going to Namibia in 2019 and will require tyres to be deflated in some areas, does anybody have experience of deflating the 20" tyres or should I consider installing 18" with 265/60 R18 tyres

 

[Chris B]

I have not own 20” wheels before, but 18” wheels will always be a benefit in any offroad situation ( if it will fit?)

 

[JJVDMZN]

I had BFG 20" in my GL, went to Nam and had no problem in the dunes with deflating

 

[Allegro]

I have same size (Cooper Zeon) and deflated to 1.0bar without any hassles

 

[Senex]

Hi, My GL 350CDI has 275/55 R20 wheels, we are going to Namibia in 2019 and will require tyres to be deflated in some areas, does anybody have experience of deflating the 20" tyres or should I consider installing 18" with 265/60 R18 tyres

I swopped mine for 17" rims. I do a lot of off-road with 265x65 tyres. Great flotation and still excellent and predictable on-road roadholding.

 

[Allegro]

I doubt if 18" mags will fit on the GL. I tried fitting a set, and they would not go over the front calipers & disk.
Smallest diameter that you can use is 19" However the choice of tyres is limited. For this reason I fitted the 20"

 

[Senex]

MY vehicle with 17" rims is an ML and no a GL - Sorry!

 

[Pete460332]

What spare are you using with the 275/55- 20 ?. The emergency standard spare that comes with car is 4 % smaller in diameter than the 275/55-20 so cannot be used for any distance and I'm sure the wheel sensors will complain

 

[stangrp]

What spare are you using with the 275/55- 20 ?. The emergency standard spare that comes with car is 4 % smaller in diameter than the 275/55-20 so cannot be used for any distance and I'm sure the wheel sensors will complain

Hi, Thanks for your response, My GL has a space saver which doesn't mean much in an off road wheel emergency, my plan was to put smaller rims on but smallest rim size on the GL cis a 19" due to the large disks. After fitting new Pirrelli scorpion + tyres I decided to go without an extra full size wheel and for the first time in all my offroad trips (approximately 100 000 km's) I had a puncture on the road out of Sesriem (C21 I think) a stone or something slashed the tyre in the tread and we managed to get back to Sesriem and installed a garter, the mechanic could only guarantee a couple of hundred Km's and eventually I managed just over 4000km's before I finally got a 2nd hand 20" to get me home. Lesson learnt, never travel in far off places without extra wheels. If I had a conventional size 17" wheel I could have got tyres in virtually every town but not a 20"
As for feedback on deflating the tyres, I dropped them to 1.2 Bar and no issues in sand

 

[munga]

What are you doing about storing the full size spare? Do you think it could fit deflated in the current spare position? I have managed to find a used spare 20" rim and have put a tire on it so have 5 wheels.

I just bought a 2010 - GL 500 and also put on 275/55/r20 Pirelli Scorpion ATR+. Any feedback on these? Seem to get good reviews.

 

[Chris B]

We had good service from Pirelli Scorpion ATR on Merc ML's in the past. That was on 17" tyre size although.

 

[stangrp]

What are you doing about storing the full size spare? Do you think it could fit deflated in the current spare position? I have managed to find a used spare 20" rim and have put a tire on it so have 5 wheels.

I just bought a 2010 - GL 500 and also put on 275/55/r20 Pirelli Scorpion ATR+. Any feedback on these? Seem to get good reviews.

To the question of what I will do with a full size spare, the plan for our next trip is to install my roof rack and place wheels / tyres on the roof, alternately my off road trailer will take at least 1 tyre on the roof.
Feedback on the Pirelli Scorpion AT +, apart from the puncture (and it was rear left) I was happy with the tyres, I also do a lot of tar road driving and towing a Jurgens Classique caravan I have found the tyre to be fairly quite on tar

 

[Allegro]

I carry my full size spare on the roof aswell. Bit of a bugger to get it up & down though...

 

[Chris B]

GL looks ready for an overlanding trip now

 

[Allegro]

That pic was taken 2017, I've surprised many on trips with the capability of the GL. One guy actually asked me if I had it converted to a 4x4...