Advice on new tires & spacers

You're going to want 285's with a 3" lift. It will look much better with them.

I will 2nd or 3rd the sentiments on here to go with a lighter AT tire. The Mickey Thomson Baja Boss AT's in the SL rating are your best bet for a light, aggressive looking tire (if that's what you're after). If you don't want an aggressive looking tire, check out the Firestone Destination AT2, BFG Trail Terrain T/A's, or Michelin LTX M/S.

Spacers are no big deal. Install a quality set (like Spidertrax) correctly and you'll have no issues with them. 1.25" will be the minimum size you can go because of the stock length of the wheel lugs.

As far as rubbing, you have 3 main areas to be concerned about. Mudflap, front fender/front wheel liner, and body mount. With the mudflaps removed you should be good there.

For the front fender/front wheel liner are you'll want to do a fender liner mod. Sounds scary but it's super easy. https://trail4runner.com/2019/07/14/fender-liner-push-back-trimming-on-4runner/ You don't need a dremel to trim the fender. A sharp box cutter works great!

Body mount rubbing is more complicated. Do you have aftermarket UCA's?

 

Are those the Load E? Or are they the regular SL or XL or whatever MT calls it?

 

What would you do with a spare that’s not the same size?

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Great information, thank you. No aftermarket UCA's

 

I will probably get a 5th tire to match the 285's I end up with.

 

They are the SL load. I do not need a E rated tire. You can feel the difference in weight. I know from doing them in the past.

 

Still use it or swap it

 

Ok, here's the issue with a 3" lift, bigger tires, spacers (or low offset) and no aftermarket UCA's...

When you lift these vehicles, the geometry of the alignment is effected in a way where it moves the tire towards the rear of the vehicle slightly. This alignment measurement is your caster. When your tire moves slightly rearward in the wheel well, that scrub radius when turning is more likely to rub on your body mount.

You have 2 options:

1) Have a body mount chop done. Again, sounds scarier than it actually is but unless you know how to weld, you'll need someone to do it. And preferably someone that is experienced so it isn't a hack job. Lots of people have had it done here.

2) Get aftermarket high caster UCA's that allow you to adjust your caster to around 4 degrees or so. This allows you to push your tire forward in your wheel well (slightly) so that you don't rub on the body mount. One important note is that not all aftermarket UCA's will give you the forward movement that you need to accomplish this. If you're interested in learning more about this subject, it's explained here much better than I can:

https://youtu.be/huMztKaHsUE?si=__zj_mYftkaS2LnU

 

High caster UCA's actually pull the tire closer to the firewall. You're actually better off with a modest lift and factory UCA's, if you're trying to clear without a BMC.

 

X2

Beat me to it. I learned from Tinkerer and other Toyota experts that no more than 2" is the optimum lift for these, and aftermarket UCAs can give LESS clearance.

 

thats why I chose no more than 2” on all 3 of my rigs. Kept is simple and no cutting or chopping.

 

So I get you could probably use a different size in a pinch
To get to a shop, off the trail, home

but wouldn’t like somewhat considerable driving with a mismatch throw some kinda vehicular telemetry projection ratio hooplah out all kindsa whack?!?!

 

I don’t see it being any different with these cars they put donuts in for a spare. Just to get to a place to get the tire fixed.

 

The biggest concern is the extra work the differential would have to do to compensate for the different diameter. On part time 4WD, you can avoid this by putting the mismatched tire on the front. On full-time 4wd models, you can't do this, though.

I prefer the "swap it" option. Buy 5 matching tires and there's nothing to be concerned about.

 

Sometimes the donut is the same diameter as the regular tire. In other cases, I believe it's recommended to put the donut on the non-driving axle so that there's no concern about the differential being overworked.

 

I agree James! I have not read anywhere on here anyone getting a flat with 285’s and throwing there 265 on to get to a repair shop. It don’t seem like many 4Runner owners who have 285’s changed out there spare. I know my mechanic has the 4gen Tacoma lifted with bigger tires and still has the factory spare. I guess it’s up to the owner.
Lol.

 

I replace all 5 tires when i buy new ones. All of my vehicles have a matching spare.

HOWEVER, if you ever got in a situation where you had a flat, first thing to do is pull out your can of fix-a-flat and air pump and try to get it aired up. (you do have a spare can of fix-a-flat and an air pump right)
If you have a flat and have a mis matched spare and the flat is on the front no problem just swap the spare on and keep riding to the nearest place to fix and change the tire.
If you have a flat and have a mis matched spare and the flat is on the rear, your SMARTEST bet is to swap the spare to the front and your good front to the rear. Its smart to keep the rears the same height due to the differential in the rear. Its not smart to run different size tires on the rear.

 

I had a situation a few weeks ago where I used my 285 spare with my 295 "summer" tires. I had swapped tires without swapping the spare, and then had a sidewall bulge out and ended up with a mismatched spare on the rear. I swapped it to the front after I reached my destination.

Everything worked out ok. But, I really prefer having a matching spare.

 

Good thinking, but not exactly.

Yeah... Gonna have to disagree on that one. The aftermarket arms ball joint is further REARWARD and actually pushes the top of the spindle further rearward to give more of a rake to the spindle. This is barely measurable at the center of the hub but it definitely pushes the tire closer to the firewall and body mount. Typically with a big lift, 3"+ you cant exactly get the caster right but you can normally fit the tires easier with stock upper arms. When you do aftermarket upper arms to correct the caster, you normally end up with the tire in the body mount pretty good and have to do the body mount chop.

1) you can fit a 285 with a 2.5" front lift
2) with a 2.5" front lift you CAN keep the caster in check with the stock upper A-arms, you are right on the verge but you can get the 3 degrees
3) with the 2.5" front lift and stock arms, you have a better chance of NOT hitting the body mount.

4) with a 3" lift and aftermarket upper a-arms you have a very high chance of hitting the body mount with 285s.

 

People…I have 5 of the same…n their new n stuff

side note: hard to sound bougie

 

Same here….. 5) 265’s w/ 1.5” lift no other additional extra stuff. No BMC or aftermarket UCA’s. Drives and rides excellentooooo!

 

Pffft!

I have 2 sets of 5 matching wheels and tires.

 

Are you guys sure about this?

I know there are certain UCA's with built in caster (like Ironman) that pull the tire more rearward. That's why I said in my post above "One important note is that not all aftermarket UCA's will give you the forward movement that you need to accomplish this."

But I was under the impression that there are other UCA's (like high caster JBA's) that actually allow the adjustment to move your tire forward in the wheel well.

 

correct Emergency only situation

 

Ah ok, the reason I asked is the the load E’s are supposed to have thicker side biter lugs, but I’ve never seen clear pics of what they look like on the SLs. They look good!

 

The lower ball joint (on the LCA) is fixed. By definition, if you move the top ball joint on the UCA forward, you will have reduced caster numbers. The only way you can increase caster angle is to move the top ball joint backwards relative to the lower ball joint.

 

MT Baja Boss and Falken WPs have pretty aggressive side lugs no matter what load rating.

Ive run my SL through a bunch of crap on my hunting property: Sticks/limbs, stumps, rutted trails, over rock culverts and mud without any issues.

 

This

 

@Kat5280 As you can see that this is a topic rife with controversy. Since you don’t plan to go off road perhaps the best advice offered so far above (at least I think it’s been offered) is to get yourself some aggressive looking tires with chunky lugs and sidewall sculpting in the stock 265/70R17 size and pair them with a mild lift (1½“ or less) or better yet no lift.

 

That’s the tar-tar I was missing

However a thought wandered in

if you think bout it:
Having the peace of mind of uniformity
Not having to rush to shop or stop trip
Being “able” to add 5th to rotation

To me is worth the extra $100-300 difference you’d be paying for a real tire VS a spare…subtract that spare cost from your regular tire price…why bother over that?