How Important Is Beadlock?

J

jkrueger2020

New member
I purchased some wheels for my 4Runner a week ago and am starting to have second thoughts now that I realized there is no beadlock. I called the shop I got them from and they will give me 30 days to change my mind, so I'm just wondering, how important is a beadlock for a wheel? Is it worth exchanging / returning the wheels to get a set that a beadlock?

And are there any negatives of a beadlock (e.g. Highway driving)? I plan to use this for road during the week and some offroad trails during the weekends (but not rock climbing).

Thanks,
Jonathan
 
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Based on your intended usage beadlocks are certainly not necessary. In fact, many places will not work on them on a daily driver, since technically they are not street legal in many places.

Their purpose is to keep the tire bead from slipping of the rim, by literally clamping it to the wheel. This really only comes into play if you're running 10-12psi or less, which would likely only be in extreme crawling situations, which you said you don't plan on doing.

FYI the reason they're not street legal is because every single one of the bolts that hold the beadlock ring to the wheel needs to be tightened appropriately or else they could become a potential projectile when driving down the road. Or based on my last comment the beadlock ring could fail somehow and lead to you having a blowout that could endanger other motorist/pedestrians.
 
4Rager said:
Based on your intended usage beadlocks are certainly not necessary. In fact, many places will not work on them on a daily driver, since technically they are not street legal in many places.

Their purpose is to keep the tire bead from slipping of the rim, by literally clamping it to the wheel. This really only comes into play if you're running 10-12psi or less, which would likely only be in extreme crawling situations, which you said you don't plan on doing.

FYI the reason they're not street legal is because every single one of the bolts that hold the beadlock ring to the wheel needs to be tightened appropriately or else they could become a potential projectile when driving down the road. Or based on my last comment the beadlock ring could fail somehow and lead to you having a blowout that could endanger other motorist/pedestrians.
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Thank you!!! That is exactly what I needed to know.
 
not DOT approved (not street legal), and not necessary unless you plan to air down below 10psi or so. don't waste your money.
 
I'll sort or echo what was above. 99% of "beadlocks" you see are just a trim ring that's not a real beadlock. If you don't know for sure that that you need beadlocks, you probably don't want them. They are heavy, hard to balance, a pain to install/remove tires from, and expensive. They do offer the utility of locking the bead to the wheel so you can run really low air pressure, and for some situations, they're very useful. For normal street and mild offroad use - they're not a good idea. I'd even say that for a 17" wheel, I wouldn't probably want them for anything less than a 35" or 37" tire because you couldn't really air down enough to warrant having them with smaller tires and the limited sidewall height. The only place I'd want them on my 4runner is in deep snow.

There are a few street legal options

Secondair or Staun are internal pneumatic ones that you can add to just about any wheel. And IIRC a few of the aluminum ones are street legal and DOT approved. But they're also $$$.
 
Jetboy said:
I'll sort or echo what was above. 99% of "beadlocks" you see are just a trim ring that's not a real beadlock. If you don't know for sure that that you need beadlocks, you probably don't want them. They are heavy, hard to balance, a pain to install/remove tires from, and expensive. They do offer the utility of locking the bead to the wheel so you can run really low air pressure, and for some situations, they're very useful. For normal street and mild offroad use - they're not a good idea. I'd even say that for a 17" wheel, I wouldn't probably want them for anything less than a 35" or 37" tire because you couldn't really air down enough to warrant having them with smaller tires and the limited sidewall height. The only place I'd want them on my 4runner is in deep snow.

There are a few street legal options

Secondair or Staun are internal pneumatic ones that you can add to just about any wheel. And IIRC a few of the aluminum ones are street legal and DOT approved. But they're also $$$.
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I was under the assumption that the Hutchinson RockMonsters were the only DOT approved Beadlock? They're like $450 a wheel IIRC.
 
Toyota sells forged TRD beadlock wheels with the cool shiny rings, but I haven't seen them for sell anywhere lately ...
 
jkrueger2020 said:
I purchased some wheels for my 4Runner a week ago and am starting to have second thoughts now that I realized there is no beadlock. I called the shop I got them from and they will give me 30 days to change my mind, so I'm just wondering, how important is a beadlock for a wheel? Is it worth exchanging / returning the wheels to get a set that a beadlock?

And are there any negatives of a beadlock (e.g. Highway driving)? I plan to use this for road during the week and some offroad trails during the weekends (but not rock climbing).

Thanks,
Jonathan
Click to expand...

Positives
You can run low tire pressure (5 PSI) and the bead won't break. If the tire blows on the freeway, it will not come off the rim. You can change your own tire at home or on the trail.

Negatives
They are expensive. They are not legal to drive on the street because the politicians are idiots.
 
Real Dual Beadlocks with DOT stamp $200 buck per without the inner PVC insert: $200 12 Bolt Hummer Wheel Special

I run them on my 80 series, as others have mentioned not intended for daily drive use. My 80 is a dedicated trail rig that drives to and from the trail. Pretty awesome to drop down to 5psi and not worry about blowing a bead or spinning tire in rim given the weight of my rig.

-A
 

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FWIW Toyota also made beadlocks for the Mega Cruiser if you had an unlimited budget. I don't know if they are the correct bolt pattern though. I think they would be DOT approved, but also I'm not totally sure.

What we really need - or at least would be super cool - is a manufacturer to pair up with a tire maker and embed threaded inserts into the tire bead area to combine with a wheel with the correct spacing and have a matched pair that you could just bolt the tire directly to the wheel without an internal or external ring.

Also Ford has OEM street legal beadlocks on the Raptor. They're 6 lug and could be added with an adapter.
 
Last edited:
Engineer said:
With a product like beadlocks, if you have to ask, you don't need them.
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^^^^exactly what I was going to say.... (And I honestly don't mean it in a d--khead way, I really do mean it a giving proper advice kind-of-way)



2014 TEP w/ KDSS / Bilstein 5100s (front at 1.75) / Cornfed 1 inch rear spacers / 265/70 Nitto TG G2s / FN Cntrsteer Type X / RCI Front skid / Yakima Cross bars / NFab Steps
 
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