Tire Options

Well it's time for some tires on my vx but am having a hard time finding an all-terrain or mud-terrain that will fit on a stock height vx with the 18's. Local tire shop said all they had was the nitto a/t. I hear they're great tires but is that really all thats out there? I do off-road her and want at least an LT tire but don't have the money right now to do a lift or get new wheels. Any ideas unless someone out there has some stock 16's with decent tires that wants to trade for 18's with crap tires?.....didn't think so lol. Any help would be appreciated.

Also as far as lifts are concerned i'm thinking OME down the road. What could i fit with that with only minor trimming if needed? Is there a height difference between the haevy duty and medium duty? Would i need new wheels then with different backspacing, I had a wrangler w/ 4in lift that had 32's rub on stock wheels but put different wheels and 33's and never rubbed. those were also flotation and not metric. i can't read metric tires to save my life and i've tried learning. all that math.

Sure you have the money to do a lift! Just don't buy a spare tire! I'm actually serious. Flip the ball joints, spend $140 for heavy duty rear springs, install them yourself, and your done! Now you have many more tire options to choose from, buy some, trim the fenders, get an alignment, and your done again! Then, down the road, locate lower gears, install them yourself, lower the front diff and crossmember, and your done again!

would all that work with my stock shocks? Roughly how much lift would that give me anyhow and what range of tire sizes would i be looking at then?

IMO, after dealing with this with one VX and a couple of troopers stick with a 31ish tire, do the springs, get the ball joint spacers from independent4x4 (if that guy is still around) and be happy, want more lift do a SFA

that makes me wonder. anyone know or have done a solid front axle swap. completely out of my budget but could be a wish list item. how would it work with the tod system and all that. i've seen kits for older troopers and rodeos but they all utilize leaf springs. one with coils would be perfect. interesting if not way off topic. still would like to know as much as possible as this is my first ifs vehicle if ya don't count the ttb on my fullsize bronco.

First off if you want a mud tire why would you even want 18's? My first mod was to downsize to a 16" and wider rim. If your short on money get some cheap steel wheels (stronger for offroading anyway)

After the lift (2.5" OME spring lift) I wouldn't go bigger than 32's unless you want to do quite a bit of trimming/banging with sledge. And yes the stock shocks will work. Look into the TrXus M/T tire, they are freakin sweet! I think I have 45,000-50,000 miles on mine and they still have plenty of tread for the mud. I think I will get nearly 70,000 miles on them which is amazing compared to any other mud tire I have had/seen.

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Originally Posted by Knivx

that makes me wonder. anyone know or have done a solid front axle swap. completely out of my budget but could be a wish list item. how would it work with the tod system and all that. i've seen kits for older troopers and rodeos but they all utilize leaf springs. one with coils would be perfect. interesting if not way off topic.

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Yeah, that is a pipe dream for lotsaguys here. Nobody has pulled it off yet but there is a lot of random babbling about it on the forum, do a search for 'SAS' and you'll find the most info.

I did a 285/60/18 with just some slight trimming of the front cladding, so little you could hardle notice that it wasn't OEM, but that was with the OEM Wheel, 38mm positive offset. When I went to a 18mm, more work had to be done.

I fit the same size as Rowhard without a lift using 0 offset 8.5" wide rims. Minimal trimming and a tosion crank was needed. Then I lifted and got bigger meats.

I went with the Nitto Terra Grapplers in a 285/60/18 and only had to trim a small amount off of the front of the front cladding where it curls back towards the front tire. You really can't even see the part that I trimmed when your standing next to the VX. You would have to crawl under the a stock VX, and then crawl under mine to notice what is missing. My VX is stock ride height and the Nitto's are on the stock 18" rims.

The side wall of the Nitto's flushes out exactly with the edge of the fender and they fill the wheel well up nicely. They're pretty beefy looking too. Later on if you go with a lift, the tires still look great on the truck.

Toyo Open Country A/Ts come in four sizes for 18" rims ranging from 29" to 32.5" see here: http://marktg.toyotires.com/file/18971.pdf:

I love my Toyos! I have the Open Country M/Ts on the Rodeo (35") and Proxes S/T on the VX.