What is the biggest / beefiest tire I can get with a 3 inch lift on stock wheels?

Rjackson32 · Mar 30, 2006

I am beginning my research on giving my 98' XJ a 3-4 inch lift on the stock wheels and was wondering if there is a favorite tire here on the forum. If so, what is it and what is the biggest size I can get? I am looking to spend about 300 dollars for 4 tires. Thanks

schmiedel · Mar 30, 2006

I have a 3" lift with 30 tires and it's working great, 31 - 32 should work but you'll certainly get trouble driving off-road.

By the way, my 30 tires touch the track-bar while fully turning, it's not so bad but it can be somewhat annoying. You'll need wheels with offset to avoid this. With 31-32 tires it'll be worse as they are 10.5 / 11.5 instead of 9.5.

If you're not wanting to spend in the near future, I'd suggest you to go with 30 tires, 31 and 32 will require you to make more mods (cut fenders, wheels with offset, and possibly new gears).

Regards

Wayne Sihler · Mar 30, 2006

A 31-10.50 will fit nice.You may have a slight rub on stock lower control arms at full steering lock.a thin washer under the steering stop will take care of that.
Wayne

Rjackson32 · Mar 30, 2006

Sounds like I am going to want to go with the 30's because I am not a serious off-roader, i go a bit but I am mainly doing it for the looks. So a 3 inch lift with 30' tires will fit with only minor rubbing at full lock? Where would be the best place to do some tire shopping and compare them?

schmiedel · Mar 30, 2006

I only have trouble with rubbing at full turn, but it really happens only once or twice a week (daily driver), and it's not too much rubbing. I'm planning to install bigger tires when my 30 BFG-Mud get old, but I'll consider making other mods first. For example, my 88 XJ is manual tranny and has 3.07 gears. With the 30 tires I can feel some loss in torque, so bigger tires will requiere me to install at least 3.56 gears for 32 tires, or 3.78 for 33. If you're auto, you'll have 3.56 probably, and you'll see more or less the same loss. The bigger the tire, it'll be worse, so take that into account also.

Rjackson32 · Mar 30, 2006

How about if I were to keep stock suspension. What would the biggest tires I could put on stock wheels and stock suspension. Also, since this is for looks, what is the biggest wheel spacer I can use without rubbing issues? Are wheel spacers reccomended or not?

klonestar · Mar 30, 2006

Wayne Sihler said:
A 31-10.50 will fit nice.You may have a slight rub on stock lower control arms at full steering lock.a thin washer under the steering stop will take care of that.
Wayne

X2 no spacers

ROBZ95Xj · Mar 30, 2006

Get 31's you will be fine.

homebrew · Mar 30, 2006

I had 32's with minimal rubbing and no cutting or extra mods

http://images.kodakgallery.com/photos1872/1/31/34/67/95/4/495673431107_0_ALB.jpg

klonestar · Mar 30, 2006

Rjackson32 said:
I am beginning my research on giving my 98' XJ a 3-4 inch lift on the stock wheels and was wondering if there is a favorite tire here on the forum. If so, what is it and what is the biggest size I can get? I am looking to spend about 300 dollars for 4 tires. Thanks

Good luck on finding 4 new tires for 300.00! Use your favorite search engine and look for 'discount tires'. You might want to consider finding someone who has some good used tires for sale.

dynamite44 · Mar 30, 2006

if you want cheap 30s, check out the dunlop mud rover and the kuhmo venture MT. both of which sell for under 100 per tire from places like tirerack and tires.com

you could do 31x1050s, but you'd need to ajust your steering stops using washers, as said above, but that would make your turning circle even wider. not reccomended if you live in an urban or suburban area, or if you care about how wide the thing turns at full lock.

some people will debate this, but you can run 30s on stock suspension, as long as you keep it on the street. i did a little light wheeling with my 30s and experienced some rubbing on the rear bumper end caps (mine is a 2000) and the tops of the front fender flares. no dammage was done, nothing broke, they just rubbed a little. my rear end was sagging at the time too, which probably contributed to the rear rub.

schmiedel · Mar 30, 2006

I have seen stock suspension XJ with 31 tires, but it'll certainly rub. With 3" of lift, a 30 tire will only rub with the control arms at full turn, but a 31 will rub even more and might also rub with the fender during wheeling (assuming you disconnect the swaybar). It's a matter of deciding what yuo want. A 31 tire will possibly cause you to want to cut your front fenders and buy wheels with offset, the 30 tires will be just fine. With 32 tires, you'll probably wish you had bought a 4.5" suspension. However, this is all a matter of opinions and even might depend on how your rig behaves with the suspension you installed (there are not two identical XJs).

Regards

Rjackson32 · Mar 31, 2006

I think I know less than you guys think. When I look on tire websites, I see the width in the form of 225...235 etc. Also What does 10.5 equate to? and can that go on the stock wheels? Lastly, what is 30-31-32 mean? Is there a good off-road tire website?

Rjackson32 · Mar 31, 2006

I was looking on mavisdiscounttire.com and I put in 9.5/30/15. It came up with only a few choices, the kuhmo's not on the list. But i saw something that looked good, the GT Savero. What is the consensus on these tires? They are 75 a peice which puts me right at my 300$ limit and they look quite beefy. Is that the right size to be getting?

Dragline · Mar 31, 2006

dynamite44 said:
not reccomended if you live in an urban or suburban area

Steve F · Mar 31, 2006

Rjackson32 said:
I think I know less than you guys think. When I look on tire websites, I see the width in the form of 225...235 etc. Also What does 10.5 equate to? and can that go on the stock wheels? Lastly, what is 30-31-32 mean? Is there a good off-road tire website?

225, 235 etc is the width in mm's there are 25.4mm's to the inch so 10.5" (which is the tyre width in inches) is equivalent to about a 265.

The 30-31-32 is the height of the tyre in inches.

Tyres will either be listed in metric eg 235/75/15 (although the 15 is the wheel height in inches) or imperial sizes eg 31x10.5x15

In 235/75/15 the 75 is the profile of the tyre as a percentage of the width, Soooo its 235mm wide and from the edge of the rim to the tread of the tyre it is 75% of 235mm so in this case 176mm. So this tyre would be 176mm*2 + the rim height of 15" which ends up as 28.8".

Hopefully I haven't made it worse

Cheers
Steve

p.s Notice the Australian spelling of 'tyre' just incase anyone thinks I'm spelling it wrong

Rjackson32 · Mar 31, 2006

You havent made things worse at all, quite a help actually. Thank you.

klonestar · Mar 31, 2006

Rjackson32 said:
I was looking on mavisdiscounttire.com and I put in 9.5/30/15. It came up with only a few choices, the kuhmo's not on the list. But i saw something that looked good, the GT Savero. What is the consensus on these tires? They are 75 a peice which puts me right at my 300$ limit and they look quite beefy. Is that the right size to be getting?

Size will work fine. Try searching for others input on that make model using your favorite search engine. Sorry I dont know anything about them. If your just going for looks and it fits your budget go for it. Watch out for shipping costs to unless you have a dealer close enough to pick up from. Im waiting to do a 3" lift so I can run 31"s myself but I also plan on using them.

225,235-75's are a 29" tall tire, 30, 31,etc refers to tire height. 9.5,10.5, etc refers to widest tire width at sidewalls. Search and find a P Metric conversion tire chart and you can enter in various sizes to get P Metric equivalents or visa versa. The 9.5" wide tires normally have about 7-7.5" of tread on the ground.

Dont forget balance and install and tire disposal in your budget. My area gets about $15.00 per tire total.

Personally I like a 31" tire on a 3" lift if even just for looks. It fills in the fender better. But thats just my personal likes. But im on a very tight budget to so I really do understand that.

Best of luck,
Ken

Rjackson32 · Mar 31, 2006

Will 31x10.5x15 fit the stock 15 inch wheel? Or is that too wide?

Wayne Sihler · Mar 31, 2006

Rjackson32 said:
Will 31x10.5x15 fit the stock 15 inch wheel? Or is that too wide?

YES I run a BFG Mud-terrain on the stock wheels (15x7) with the stock back space(5 1/4") without any problems.
Wayne

What is the biggest / beefiest tire I can get with a 3 inch lift on stock wheels?

NAXJA Forum User

NAXJA Forum User

NAXJA Member

NAXJA Forum User

NAXJA Forum User

NAXJA Forum User

NAXJA Forum User

NAXJA Forum User

NAXJA Forum User

NAXJA Forum User

NAXJA Forum User

NAXJA Forum User

NAXJA Forum User

NAXJA Forum User

NAXJA Forum User

NAXJA Forum User

NAXJA Forum User

NAXJA Forum User

NAXJA Forum User

NAXJA Member

Similar threads