So after what happened last weekend in Death Valley, I'm getting some more serious off-road tires. Just this morning I was at my local America's Tire Co. seeing if a 285/75-16 BFG AT KO would fit, and no joy . While it fits in a straight line, and looks freaking FANTASTIC, it totally rubs on the fender liners when turned. You'd have to chop huge sections of the liners out to make it fit, bummer. So I'll be getting the 275/70-16s on Monday, just a hair bigger than stock (1cm wider and .5" larger diameter). Too bad they don't make a 285/70-16 of anything...

A lift might help. Of course the bigger the lift the less chance of rubbing. Besides the more you go off-road the more you will appreciate the extra clearance. It only costs money

Actually, I was obsessing over it all fracking night! All I need to do is hit the fender liner with a heat gun and pop that big crease out instead of in like it is now...hmmm....hmmmm....DAMN it looked good on 285s!

So I drive the kids to School in the Pathy this morning, thinking I'm going to hit the tire shop afterwords and get the 285s, fender liners be damned.

As I'm leaving school and merginig back onto the freeway, I hear a plastic-bag-caught-on-the-undercairrage sound. Odd. It dies away after a few seconds, so maybe it was just something from that bobtail truck on the surface streets which I'm now rapidly accelerating away from...

NOPE. 2 mininutes later I'm pulled off in a carpool parking lot standing next to the front left of my truck looking at ANOTHER FLAT TIRE!!! OMFG!

And it's flat flat flat, totally toasted by a nail or something sharp, sidewalls were even a little scrubbed from driving on it a little bit to get off the freeway. Now here's the amusing part...the tire that I blew out in Death Valley last weekend, it still has like 20psi of air in it, will that patch that refused to hold 30psi in DV at least hold what air it has until I get to the tire shop? Wonder of wonders, yes it did

So at around 12:30 today I'm heading out of my local America's Tire Co. with five 285/75-16 BFG AT KOs on my truck, that's 2" taller and 4/5" wider than stock. They rub the front fender liners a bit when about half way to lock, but it's a minor conflict and I'll attack those with a heat gun and dremel soon enough, and the full sized spare fits under the tail (barely).

There's just a hint of 4x4 tire growl when driving along, but in no way is it louder than normal road noise, as confirmed with my trusty Radioshack DB meter. Acceleration is a bit weaker of course, since these are bigger tires the gearing has changed, and also a little more effort needed to turn the steering wheel or push on the brakes. Over all the truck feels heavier and more substantial, more planted by gravity than before.

The truck looks SO mean now, it's fantastic. Visually it looks wider and lower than before, because the wheel arch gap is less, when in fact the roof line is an inch further from the pavement. With those wide 285 meats and lower & wider feel it almost reminds me of an H3 Trophy Truck...


Pictures of the truck and details on tweaking the fender liners to come soon! Wohoo, baby's got a new pair of 32" shoes!

Pictures Pictures Pictures...







Here's the spot it rubs, on the rear of the left front fender liner. The odd thing is that it doesn't rub that much on the passenger's side for any reason. I think just using a heat gun I can get that rib to bow out instead of in and all will be well again:

Interesting results on the rubbing. The tires I'm running are .1" smaller than yours but my only rubbing was almost dead center on the front liner. Never touched the mud guards at all.

Hm, interesting. Mine does rub very slightly in the middle of the front liners, but not enough worth noting IMHO. Even the rubbing on the rear liners isn't much, but I'll still try to clean it up so it doesn't make any noise.

Sorry you had another blowout, but at least you were on the way to get new tires anyway. They do look nice on the Pathy. Now you need to see how they do in the desert. Do I hear Road Trip?

Hahahahah, soon as we can! Probably not for a bit, Desert is getting HOT =P

I guess I wouldn't want to do hot weather testing on that super charger either. Forced air and hot weather don't make for ideal companions. Then getting out of the truck and feel like you stepped into a toaster oven doesn't sound like much fun to me. Good luck with the new sneaks.

Looks great, Carl. I'd definitely like to see some photos of the heat gun/dremel work whenever you get to it. I'm kind of on the fence about getting the 285s or not, so your results might just persuade me one way or the other.

The only other question I have for you is if you could possibly keep an eye on your mpg & let us know how far off it is from before. I know the on-board computer won't be reflecting the correct totals, but you should be able to get it dead-on using any of the tire size calculators online & a bit of math.

Lastly, I can't believe you don't have dreams of the OME lift now...

Actually I don't want to lift it, for fear of adverse effects on handling and kid/gf entry/egress. I don't go rock crawling with this thing, it just needs to get me into the wild unknown and home again.

I'll make a wild guess that MPG has gone down by 1. Indicated is more like 2, but you gotta remember that the odometer is wrong now and not showing how far I truly travel anymore. I'll work at testing it some evening soon when I've got some time to kill.

One thing I have already tested is the speedo, MPH at an indicated 70MPH is now 72.5 according to hand-held GPS, where as before it was more like 68 right? Can anybody confirm the stock number?

-c

One other thing, did you have the new tires mounted on the stock wheels? I know the stock wheels are 7", but the 285's require 7.5". Blink mentioned it shouldn't be a problem at all, as he has seen far worse, but I'd like to get your input since I think you are running the 7" wheels. Aside from the rubbing, having too narrow a wheel is my only other concern, although I'm about 90% sure I'm going to go with the 285's.

Yup, those are the bone stock OEM rims, including the full sized spare, all mounted up just fine.

RacerZX wrote:Yup, those are the bone stock OEM rims, including the full sized spare, all mounted up just fine.

And Discount Tire didn't balk at fitting those on the stock wheels?