Right. The idea is they hold the tire bead better in lower psi and side loads. But maybe where they don't help is if there is contamination (such as the sandy grit that forced its way between) and compromises the seal that way. Perhaps when I had a tire spin that was enough for it to get through. My hope is the addition of bead sealer when mounting will prevent this variable. Will be keeping a close eye as I didn't do this to the other three afterwards.
There are a lot of parts to this equation. The low pressure is not the issue (15 psi is not that low unless your driving fast and taking hard corners at speed off road). Every tire design is slightly different, in both how the sidewall is shaped, sidewall stiffness and bead design. One of the biggest issues is the actual tires "bead saver" that started about 20 years ago. To protect the flange of your rim from rock scrapes, tire manufacturers started putting a thick layer of rubber just outside the wheel flange in the effort to help rocks keep from scraping your rim flange. The unintended result this may case is it creates a great fulcrum point that actually helps leverage the tire bead away from the rim (the exact opposite of what you want) so the tire separates from the rims flange very so slightly letting debris get between the two. Worst case scenario it helps just break the bead....definitely not what you want to happen. The other thing to look at is the tire width to wheel width. It's a little hard to tell in the video but those rims look to be maybe 8-9" wide??? You don't have a ton of sidewall bulge so that may also be causing the tire to roll off the flange easier to allow debris to work its way in. Then it takes quite a bit of driving and the grit works down onto the bead surface and you get a leak. I think you have the XL load range MT tires and not the LT rated versions of the same size. Interestingly the LT version has a narrower rim specification than the XL. My advice to anybody with Bead Grips is to make sure when they are first installed on a clean rim is to over inflate them to verify that the bead has fully seated. Your XL tire is rated for a maximum road pressure of 50 psi,....I would take that up to 65 psi to verify that the bead has seated and then drop them down to your road pressures. It is very hard to get a good "seated bead" on the Bead Grips without using plenty of air pressure. Every tire model has a slightly different shape so you need to check and double check that you're fully seated.
Interesting I thought those were the wheels to go with as an alternative to full beadlock wheels
Right. The idea is they hold the tire bead better in lower psi and side loads. But maybe where they don't help is if there is contamination (such as the sandy grit that forced its way between) and compromises the seal that way. Perhaps when I had a tire spin that was enough for it to get through.
My hope is the addition of bead sealer when mounting will prevent this variable. Will be keeping a close eye as I didn't do this to the other three afterwards.
There are a lot of parts to this equation. The low pressure is not the issue (15 psi is not that low unless your driving fast and taking hard corners at speed off road). Every tire design is slightly different, in both how the sidewall is shaped, sidewall stiffness and bead design. One of the biggest issues is the actual tires "bead saver" that started about 20 years ago. To protect the flange of your rim from rock scrapes, tire manufacturers started putting a thick layer of rubber just outside the wheel flange in the effort to help rocks keep from scraping your rim flange. The unintended result this may case is it creates a great fulcrum point that actually helps leverage the tire bead away from the rim (the exact opposite of what you want) so the tire separates from the rims flange very so slightly letting debris get between the two. Worst case scenario it helps just break the bead....definitely not what you want to happen. The other thing to look at is the tire width to wheel width. It's a little hard to tell in the video but those rims look to be maybe 8-9" wide??? You don't have a ton of sidewall bulge so that may also be causing the tire to roll off the flange easier to allow debris to work its way in. Then it takes quite a bit of driving and the grit works down onto the bead surface and you get a leak. I think you have the XL load range MT tires and not the LT rated versions of the same size. Interestingly the LT version has a narrower rim specification than the XL. My advice to anybody with Bead Grips is to make sure when they are first installed on a clean rim is to over inflate them to verify that the bead has fully seated. Your XL tire is rated for a maximum road pressure of 50 psi,....I would take that up to 65 psi to verify that the bead has seated and then drop them down to your road pressures. It is very hard to get a good "seated bead" on the Bead Grips without using plenty of air pressure. Every tire model has a slightly different shape so you need to check and double check that you're fully seated.
Very interesting insights, thanks for sharing! These are indeed the XL rated version of the tires :)