Split rims or normal?

The main advantage with split rims is that they are easier to remove the tyre from the rim when fixing a puncture. (Can be dangerous for the inexperienced however!!).

G'day Jenko.
It's really six of one half a dozen of the other. With splitties you don't need bead breaking gear, but they are not renown for being too balanced. Whites are generally better balanced. Really depends on what your doing, if your spending a lot of time in remote areas expecting punctures IMHO go the splits.
Happy Camping.

I've used both for many years.

Negatives for splits:
They build up heat, so the tyres wear out quicker.
Its hard to get quality tubes for them. Tubes can self destruct.
If you get a flat you have to fix it. Tubeless can be fixed on the vehicle in 5 minutes with a plug.
They are harder to balance
I find them harder to dismantle than tubeless, especially if they have been on the vehicle for a while.
When a tyre deflates, it goes down straight away - very dangerous on the highway - have nearly rolled a troopie twice because of blowouts with split rims. And you also risk destroying the tyre because of a tube failure.
When we go on club trips, its mostly the split rims that get flat tyres - often its tube failures rather than punctures.
When running low pressures in sand, you can easily turn the tyre on a rim and tear off the valve.

The only positives for a split is that they are dead easy to reassemble, but you must take care that the split doesn't fling off when reinflating. And being skinny tyres, you will get better fuel consumption. Also, its hard to roll a tyre off the rim in sand.

I won't go back to splits.

My feeling is that split’s have had there day, although they still have a place on exploration 4WD, station and off track exploring as radials do not even come close to cross-ply bush tyres witch is what these cars require due to the type of terrane they are constantly operating in.

When you look at tubeless tyres for general 4WDing the advantages far out way the disadvantages
Handle well on the highway, more stable at speed, no tube failures, better for beach work and suitable for outback travel, can repair most punchers with tyre still on the rim and in some cases still on the 4WD and it goes on. Then if all else fails you can still put a tube in it to get back to civilisation or just fill it up with Spinifex (Arr yes good old bush mechanics)

To me nothing look’s more unstable on the road than a loaded up troopy on split rims.

Split’s have a small place on some 4WD’s but for most tubeless are much more practical and preform better.

Personal opinion, If you like to run split’s that’s’ your choice.

Being a dyed in the wool splits man, vowing never to succumb to the pressures of other travellers advocating the tubelass tyres, I gave up last year when I bought a later model vehicle which came with 265x75x16 tyres.

I have now done 40,000km the last 12 months and have not had a puncture out bush and only one slow leak in town which was the result of a nail picked up somewhere.

Splits were always easier to repair but I seemed to average a puncture a month. They are also more difficult to balance and as others have said, getting quality, tubes these days is a problem.

Have recently completed 16,000km trek across a variety of terrain including some really rough tracks, and my Cooper STT's perfomed well.

If you do decide to go to tubeless I would suggest to go 16inch as 15inch rims are also fading out.

I won't be going back to splits

I might be the odd one out here. I have never had a car with splits on it. So I don't know anything about them.

From what has been said above the main objection to tubless is the difficulty in breaking the bead if you need to. Solution...... buy a decent bead breaker. My wife can do it while I cook tea.

As for splits being the go on work vehicles. Just about all the station vehicles around here (Broken Hill) are now running tubless, the ones in the mine are on splits.

Duncs

One source of good tubes is Michelin dealers - Michelin tubed tyres only really work well with genuine Michelin tubes - and they are still of very high quality.
Collyn Rivers

Hey Guys, Thanks for the response.

Looks like the majority are for Sunraysi with Tubeless tyres. Being a person with two ears and only one mouth I will listen to all advice given and I think Ill take the majority advice and switch to normal Wheels and tyres.

Thanks to all who responded