Skinny 35's vs. 34's?

[timjax]

With the market now having new skinny 35" offerings in the Kenda Klever R/T in 35x10.5R17 and the Toyo Open Country A/T III and Nitto Trail Grappler M/T in 35x11.5R17, there seems to be some more viable ways to run 35's. 35's tend to be a minority in this community just based on the extra work needed to get the typical 35x12.5 size to fit, and hassles (MPG's, rubbing, sluggish driving dynamics), but a skinnier tire should prove a little easier to fit in, as well as having less weight and friction. Even the lower-powered and smaller Tacoma's and GX's are successfully running these skinny 35's with minimal issues.

Here's some pictures of @drftsub 's 200 with the 35x10.5 Kenda's which he indicates he was able to run without excessive mods (No regear, excessive trimming, or KDSS relo):

Typically, the 285/75R17 (34" x 11") has been the reasonable go-to for the next size up from 33's, but now the skinny 35's can be a quite practical option with almost the same level of mods (proper offset wheels, lift, UCA's, fender liner work, possible KDSS relo). 2016+ LC200's even have updated gearing that seems to accommodate much larger tires without the need for a regear.

My question is, what would be the better fit, 34's or skinny 35's? Would the .60-.75" in *actual* diameter increase from the 285/75 prove to be a significant detriment in MPG's, CV axle/wheel bearing wear, rubbing, poor gearing for daily driving, accelerated suspension component wear, etc?

 

[grinchy]

275/80r18 (35x11). Fit was easy. Minor liner work and a small AHC sensor lift. The benefit is more ground clearance when aired down. I did put in 4.88s.

Only drawback is it’s a mild a/t tread pattern. Hasn’t been a factor yet but it will be. On plus side mpg and noise are good.

 

[Black200]

I just thought about asking this exact same question. I would really love 35's without as much of a hassle. I dont mind the lack of width since I air down all the time anyway. What are major negatives or running these skinnier tires, other than of course contact patch.

 

[TeCKis300]

While there are negatives to running wider tires tires, including more MPG impact, weight, etc, there are some advantages.

Skinnier tires have less lateral traction. This matter on and off road. On-road, when cornering and braking may be impacted, significantly. Off-road that same lateral traction loss may results in less sidehill traction, and the ability to dictate a line through ruts and washes, particularly when wet. Wider tires have a better chance to float above or over ruts, without automatically finding the bottom of them, and with more lateral traction and ability to get out. While skinnies are said to have incrementally better forward traction, wide tires situationally can too, with a better chance of engaging the side lugs against sides of ruts and washes, particularly when aired down.

The bigger part for me is having sidewall buldge for pinches off-road, to protect the wheels, and also body to a degree. With a buldged sidewall, they are the first and hopefully only point of contact.

 

[tbisaacs]

I love the look but you can’t hang the spare underneath. It’s such a slippery slope from there

 

[timjax]

275/80r18 (35x11). Fit was easy. Minor liner work and a small AHC sensor lift. The benefit is more ground clearance when aired down. I did put in 4.88s.

Only drawback is it’s a mild a/t tread pattern. Hasn’t been a factor yet but it will be. On plus side mpg and noise are good.

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Looks great! Very impressed that you can run them well with minimal modifications. What do your average MPG's look like?

While there are negatives to running wider tires tires, including more MPG impact, weight, etc, there are some advantages.

Skinnier tires have less lateral traction. This matter on and off road. On-road, when cornering and braking may be impacted, significantly. Off-road that same lateral traction loss may results in less sidehill traction, and the ability to dictate a line through ruts and washes, particularly when wet. Wider tires have a better chance to float above or over ruts, without automatically finding the bottom of them, and with more lateral traction and ability to get out. While skinnies are said to have incrementally better forward traction, wide tires situationally can too, with a better chance of engaging the side lugs against sides of ruts and washes, particularly when aired down.

The bigger part for me is having sidewall buldge for pinches off-road, to protect the wheels, and also body to a degree. With a buldged sidewall, they are the first and hopefully only point of contact.

True! Luckily, a "Skinny 35" ends up being a fairly normal width for our platform, the 35x10.5 Kenda run about 11.02 inches wide (converts to 280mm section width = "280/80R17"), while the 35x11.5 tires run fairly true with a ~290mm section width ("290/75R17"). Which is about in line with the factory 285 section width. Similarly, the 285/75R17 "34" size is about 33.8" x 11.2" in reality. I personally am not a fan of actually skinny "pizza cutter" tires like 265's and 275's, especially on a full-size platform such as the 200 series, for the same reasons you mentioned.

This is why these new sizes are so intriguing for our platform IMO: you get a traditional 11-11.5" width (not truly "skinny"), but with the taller ~35" diameter. Wider widths like 12.5" (which used to be the only way to get 35's) are when you start to see a lot of the heavy rubbing and stuffing issues. Sounds like the "goldilocks" of tire sizes for the 200 series.

I love the look but you can’t hang the spare underneath. It’s such a slippery slope from there

What's the maximum spare diameter?

 

[Taco2Cruiser]

While there are negatives to running wider tires tires, including more MPG impact, weight, etc, there are some advantages.

Skinnier tires have less lateral traction. This matter on and off road. On-road, when cornering and braking may be impacted, significantly. Off-road that same lateral traction loss may results in less sidehill traction, and the ability to dictate a line through ruts and washes, particularly when wet. Wider tires have a better chance to float above or over ruts, without automatically finding the bottom of them, and with more lateral traction and ability to get out. While skinnies are said to have incrementally better forward traction, wide tires situationally can too, with a better chance of engaging the side lugs against sides of ruts and washes, particularly when aired down.

The bigger part for me is having sidewall buldge for pinches off-road, to protect the wheels, and also body to a degree. With a buldged sidewall, they are the first and hopefully only point of contact.

I can tell you don’t off road.

Lateral traction? With a “skinny” 11.5 wide tire? Verse what? A 17” wide tire. Skinny is more like 9 inch wide.

Traction increase when off road is in the length increase of a deflated tire. 1 inch wider tires add very, very little (inflated or not) to traction, the taller the better as when deflating, you get far more length of tread on the ground.

Also, that theory if tire bulge to protect the wheel is what BFG tried, and failed horribly at. It turns into a great way to break beads. So they got rid of it.

The float thing kills me. I used to do mud racing in college. You’re not floating with anything below 16” wide. Now you have more tire to try and push through the muk. A skinny will try and get down to some real traction with less to push.

I normally keep my mouth shut with what you say, it’s just so much theory that I can’t handle it anymore. It’s like everything. And it’s hard to hear when I’ve ran tires from 8”- 19” wide.

 

[tbisaacs]

Looks great! Very impressed that you can run them well with minimal modifications. What do your average MPG's look like?


True! Luckily, a "Skinny 35" ends up being a fairly normal width for our platform, the 35x10.5 Kenda run about 11.02 inches wide (converts to 280mm section width = "280/80R17"), while the 35x11.5 tires run fairly true with a ~290mm section width ("290/75R17"). Which is about in line with the factory 285 section width. Similarly, the 285/75R17 "34" size is about 33.8" x 11.2" in reality. I personally am not a fan of actually skinny "pizza cutter" tires like 265's and 275's, especially on a full-size platform such as the 200 series, for the same reasons you mentioned.

This is why these new sizes are so intriguing for our platform IMO: you get a traditional 11-11.5" width (not truly "skinny"), but with the taller ~35" diameter. Wider widths like 12.5" (which used to be the only way to get 35's) are when you start to see a lot of the heavy rubbing and stuffing issues. Sounds like the "goldilocks" of tire sizes for the 200 series.


What's the maximum spare diameter?

Biggest I've seen underneath is 34" and you'd be on the panhard bar

 

[grinchy]

[QUOTE="timjax, post: 13297987, What do your average MPG's look like?

What's the maximum spare diameter?
[/QUOTE]
Lx has no kdss so easier to fit, and ahc allows me to run size without permanent lift which would need UCAs.

I get 10 or 11 in town and 14-16 at highway speeds.

34+ is a hard or not fit. There are more posts on this but I stopped paying attention when I got the rear bar.

 

[rlynch356]

IMHO.. heavy trucks like bigger tires off road.. (granted my last full body truck that I built was an LR3 but it was a full build including gearing, armor, etc).
what you have to contend with is tire fold over at lower pressures. if this is an AT with reasonably higher pressures your fine (25ish PSI). but at low pressures 10-15 the tires fold over on a 6K+ lbs truck. rolling the bead.

here in NC we typically need M/T tires for the terrain, slick rock an A/T is better so its all condition dependent.

On my defender 90 I run 255/85-16 which works out to a 10.5" tire, and is considered a tall skinny pizza cutter. its not really but works well with a 4.5K lbs truck . My 110 did better on a 12.5" tire than on the 10.5" basically due to weight.
My experience is with E rated tires as well, I would not venture in to rocks with less..

 

[TeCKis300]

I can tell you don’t off road.

Lateral traction? With a “skinny” 11.5 wide tire? Verse what? A 17” wide tire. Skinny is more like 9 inch wide.

Traction increase when off road is in the length increase of a deflated tire. 1 inch wider tires add very, very little (inflated or not) to traction, the taller the better as when deflating, you get far more length of tread on the ground.

Also, that theory if tire bulge to protect the wheel is what BFG tried, and failed horribly at. It turns into a great way to break beads. So they got rid of it.

The float thing kills me. I used to do mud racing in college. You’re not floating with anything below 16” wide. Now you have more tire to try and push through the muk. A skinny will try and get down to some real traction with less to push.

I normally keep my mouth shut with what you say, it’s just so much theory that I can’t handle it anymore. It’s like everything. And it’s hard to hear when I’ve ran tires from 8”- 19” wide.

There's enough room on this forum that you and I don't have to agree. While we approach things differently, we often agree more often than not. My thoughts are not singular. You can search the web for many authorities that also agree. Yet that may be from a certain perspective.

I'll be the first to say I'm not a hardcore off-roader and I don't mud race. I'm an overlander first. Where the journey matters more than the specific obstacle. I still want to tackle that obstacle though.

Width matters to me more on road and off - yes for lateral traction. You might be fine with your heavy narrow tire rig and traction control beep beeping at you over moderate speeds because it doesn't have enough grip to take a corner, but I won't put up with a single purpose machine for my uses. That doesn't make me right or wrong. Diversity of thought and perspective is why we share after all isn't it?

 

[Taco2Cruiser]

There's enough room on this forum that you and I don't have to agree. While we approach things differently, we often agree more often than not. My thoughts are not singular. You can search the web for many authorities that also agree. Yet that may be from a certain perspective.

I'll be the first to say I'm not a hardcore off-roader and I don't mud race. I'm an overlander first. Where the journey matters more than the specific obstacle. I still want to tackle that obstacle though.

Width matters to me more on road and off - yes for lateral traction. You might be fine with your heavy narrow tire rig and traction control beep beeping at you over moderate speeds because it doesn't have enough grip to take a corner, but I won't put up with a single purpose machine for my uses. That doesn't make me right or wrong. Diversity of thought and perspective is why we share after all isn't it?

Well said... but what if I told you I can take on road turns fast and hard. I can count on one hand in the last 2 decades where anyone has past me on a mountain road. I’ve never heard any of my Toyota 4x4s beep at me when on road. Setting up suspensions for road handling is something I learned long ago in the racing world. So there’s things that I can fine tune that you’ll have to pay thousand of dollars to achieve. Give me an edge.

Also, I’ve driven the trans American and the pan american. Every hardcore, big name trail I’ve ran, I’ve also drove a endless interstate or back country gravel road. I’m just as experienced in the overland mindset as the hard core mindset.

I think where we disagree is you are more “matter of fact,” where I see that the differences you point are so negligible that it can’t be quantified when applied to the 200. So don’t sway people’s opinion with irrelevant theories.

I’ve had 13” wide muds on my 200. You know what happened when off road? The same things that happened when on a 275 wide tire. There just isn’t enough difference.

This thread, being basically is a 35x11.5 tire vs 34x11.5 tire is not going to make any 200 go more places than the other. It’s more of a fitment question.

We can disagree, I still enjoy our conversations, even though I had to block you for about 6 month. Which is sad, for both of us. I don’t care that we disagree. I just have done what you talk about, for years, across so many different terrains, and don’t see it. So I must give my counter argument that will mostly like read “teckis said this, but I’ve actually done it, and I say no.”

Next time I’m in California or if you come to the Carolinas, we need to go on a drive. I know we’ll get along. I’m sure we’ll teach each other some things and both be better at the end.

@timjax , I almost always see a 34” tall tire rub KDSS at some point, without an aggressive 0° offset wheel. But when going that much off set, the tire rubs fenders harder than ever.

Also, KDSS, the frame, and the body are not positioned the same between every 200. I’m making another thread about this soon.

I found it by putting the same wheel/tire combos on 6 different 200. I found that they are all little snowflakes.

You will have to, ultimately, see what works fitment wise for your 200. Especially when pushing clearances as tight as you will be doing.

 

[afgman786]

You might be fine with your heavy narrow tire rig and traction control beep beeping at you over moderate speeds because it doesn't have enough grip to take a corner, but I won't put up with a single purpose machine for my uses.

How hard are you pushing a 200 to have this happen...? Even when I was on 265s I never took a corner that caused VSC to go off...
I think I'd stain your seats if I rode with you on the road hahaha

 

[TeCKis300]

I'm always open to hearing thoughts and experiences. Some might think the dialogue is an argument. That's not the case. Conversation is useful to understand perspectives and use cases, which establishes what details may matter, which is then up to the individual to draw from. We all share the 200-series on these boards, and much of our uses overlap, but there are differences as we tailor for our own preferences.

Some might think I come from theory with no experience, and their anecdotes tell them otherwise. That is fine, because I have nothing to prove. I'll say for those that know me personally, they'd tell you that assumption couldn't be more wrong. I'm here for the enjoyment of the hobby and to take the 200-series beyond where the factory left off, hopefully in a manner that a factory engineered performance arm might have done it.

How hard are you pushing a 200 to have this happen...? Even when I was on 265s I never took a corner that caused VSC to go off...
I think I'd stain your seats if I rode with you on the road hahaha

Hah, that might come from my other vehicular hobbies. For as big as the 200-series is, and its off-road roots architecture, it does have respectable suspension geometry and grip. I'd like to maintain that as I upgrade its other competencies. I'm comfortable probing the arguably mild limits on mountain roads and would probably find most lifted AT tired rigs frustrating to drive.

 

[silverhorse]

skinny tires andrew st.pierr - Search Videos

www.bing.com

Best video I have ever seen on the subject...

 

[Romer]

interesting thread and I appreciate everyone being respectful even when they disagree

I have found things based on facts may result in different experiences depending on the driver and the way the rig is setup. There is variability mostly from the human element, but also from the unique setup.

Thats why they make Chocolate, Vanilla and Strawberry Ice Creme and without a doubt Strawberry is the best based on my perception of the facts at hand

 

[Idaho Savage]

I'm not an overly experienced overlander nor rock crawler. I put a few thousand miles a year on dirt and gravel roads a year hunting but that's about it, save a trail run here or there.

That said, I CAN say with a lot of experience that wide tires are bad news in wintery climates. Funny to watch all of the fat tire bros around here pulling themselves out of ditches. You don't want to float; you want to bite.

 

[Fisher23]

I would rather run my 34x11.6 than a 35x10.5. That wider tire has more tread on the trail.

 

[scott johnson]

Following..... I'm running BFG 34 10.50 17's on Icon Rebounds. Looking at one of the 11.50 options or maybe a 35 10.50. Anyone got pic's?

 

[grinchy]

I would rather run my 34x11.6 than a 35x10.5. That wider tire has more tread on the trail.

Skinny elongates more aired down. Elongation provides more incremental area than widening when aired down.
At least that’s my theory

We should probably take tracings and put some science behind this debate.