I have some preliminary thoughts about the narrow, taller tires, after a thousand plus miles on various road surfaces with 235/85R16, load index 120, 1" taller and 1.2" more narrow than stock size (which were 265/70R16, load index 121, although stock tires were load index 112 and P-rated):
- Appearance: They look a little skinny. But not as skinny as WWII jeeps. Maybe the current fashion of wide tires is affecting my eye. The tread has a noticeable crown at 42psi that the tire dealer pumped used (should have been 47psi per the tables). So I measured the tread depth, which was 15/32 in the middle, but 12/32 at the edges. One of these days I'll go into a tire shop and measure wider tires.
- Pavement: We are using 47psi front, 67 psi rear based on 2700 lb front axle weight, 3600 lb rear axle weight. It feels pretty similar. Gas mileage seems similar to our previous tires. Too early to tell. Speedometer is less than 1 mph below GPS measured speed (I never measured the old tires).
- Mud: we've done more mud on this trip than ever, and it seems ok. It wasn't deep mud. I probably won't have an opinion due to lack of mud experience. Clearance felt good, hard to compare so many months apart though -- psychologically it "feels" like we have a skosh more clearance.*
- Gravel: feels the same. I've heard theories they might roll easier due to smaller width, but we won't be able to do a direct comparison -- my memory isn't that good.
- Rocks: We drove some pretty bad roads, rolling over up to 10" rocks. We lowered to 22psi front, 30psi rear which felt quite comfortable. Later we tried lower pressure on a pretty nasty road which was also pretty comfortable. These are higher pressures than we used on the wider, less tall tires. A few easier rock crawling moves worked fine. I did scrape a rock which damaged the wheel a bit... oops.
- Sand: we did some sand, some deep enough to affect steering in ruts. We need more time on sand to comment further, but they worked ok. Similar theories are espoused that narrow rolls easier.
- Clearance: no issues yet.
Generally we have no complaints but need more miles for a full opinion. Possibly sand may be an area of slight concern. We've only been stuck once, in powdery sand between Eureka Dunes and Dedeckera Canyon. (No, we didn't drive up Dedeckera, as conditions were more difficult than we're interested in driving, but it was a nice hike.)
* We had never tried the Tacoma MTS function before, using the mud setting. It seemed like we had better traction with it turned on.
Edited by rubberlegs, 14 November 2023 - 02:12 AM.