Bang Bang
Age is a state of mind.
Your rig looks fantastic!


Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.
Your rig looks fantastic!
Bumping an old thread instead of starting a new one. And I know this has been beaten to death buttt… it’s so confusing I’m just trying to find the Goldilocks zone of lift , tire spare etc . People fit a 265/70-17 not quite 32 in the spare location but a 255/75-17 is 32” does it fit tread depending?View attachment 2834620View attachment 2834621
255/75R17 Continental Terrain Contact-at load C 6ply
1.5
255/75R17 Continental Terrain Contact-at
Rear = 1.5 Cornfed Spacer in rear with new Blistein shocks
Front = 2.5 Bilstein Adjustable shocks on top setting
OEM shock
Venomrex VR-601 Wheels
Some thoughts on the 255 tires.
OEM 18 inch rims weighed 32Lbs
265/60R18 Michelin defender where 36.99
Total weight per wheel was 68.99
Venomrex VR-601 Wheels 17 inch wheel - 24.6 lbs
255/75R17 Continentals are - 40lbs.
Total os 64.6 Lbs
With the less rolling mass (10.4 inch wide v.s 10 inch) and weight difference... the truck has great pickup and handling.
The front has dropped a little after the Ironman bumper was added, and no trimming was needed.
Spacer in rear and new Blistein shocks
Bilstein Adjustable shocks on top setting 2.5 lift
OEM shock
Venomrex VR-601 Wheels
Some thoughts on the 255 tires.
OEM 18 inch rims weighed 32Lbs
265/60R18 Michelin defender where 36.99
Total weight per wheel was 68.99
Venomrex VR-601 Wheels 17 inch wheel - 24.6 lbs
255/75R17 Continentals are - 40lbs.
Total os 64.6 Lbs
With the less rolling mass (10.4 inch wide v.s 10 inch) and weight difference... the truck has great pickup and handling.
The front has dropped a little after the Ironman bumper was added, and no trimming was needed.
Thank youThe spare tire space will fit a 31.6" tire with the factory large Class IV hitch, with some variation. My 265/70R17 Falkens are 31.7 according to Tire Rack. The spare did not fit. I put sway bar spacers on and now it fits. Another poster here with the same tires and wheel width had the spare fit without mods.
MAYBE a 255/75 will fit with sway bar spacers. It looks like there's an inch or so clearance between my sway bar and the tire at stock factory ride height. However I don't know exactly how the bar moves as the suspension cycles through its travel. Which is why I want some clearance between the tire and bar. Mine's not rubbed yet.
A lift will only affect the static ride height. Unless you put on extended bump stops (which will reduce travel and articulation), the suspension can compress just as far as when its at factory ride height.
Different tires of the same nominal size can have different actual sizes. Falken Wildpeaks and Rubitreks run large. KO2s run small.
Two years later, are you still enjoying your Conti TerrainContact tires?View attachment 2834620View attachment 2834621
255/75R17 Continental Terrain Contact-at load C 6ply
1.5
255/75R17 Continental Terrain Contact-at
Rear = 1.5 Cornfed Spacer in rear with new Blistein shocks
Front = 2.5 Bilstein Adjustable shocks on top setting
OEM shock
Venomrex VR-601 Wheels
Some thoughts on the 255 tires.
OEM 18 inch rims weighed 32Lbs
265/60R18 Michelin defender where 36.99
Total weight per wheel was 68.99
Venomrex VR-601 Wheels 17 inch wheel - 24.6 lbs
255/75R17 Continentals are - 40lbs.
Total os 64.6 Lbs
With the less rolling mass (10.4 inch wide v.s 10 inch) and weight difference... the truck has great pickup and handling.
The front has dropped a little after the Ironman bumper was added, and no trimming was needed.
Spacer in rear and new Blistein shocks
Bilstein Adjustable shocks on top setting 2.5 lift
OEM shock
Venomrex VR-601 Wheels
Some thoughts on the 255 tires.
OEM 18 inch rims weighed 32Lbs
265/60R18 Michelin defender where 36.99
Total weight per wheel was 68.99
Venomrex VR-601 Wheels 17 inch wheel - 24.6 lbs
255/75R17 Continentals are - 40lbs.
Total os 64.6 Lbs
With the less rolling mass (10.4 inch wide v.s 10 inch) and weight difference... the truck has great pickup and handling.
The front has dropped a little after the Ironman bumper was added, and no trimming was needed.
Understandable but it seems there is more space with the smaller hitch . Otherwise people wouldn’t differentiate the two .I don't know for sure but I think there's not not a huge difference between hitches. There's a frame member back there.
Do you have a favorite shop for tires, if so can they mount one on your spare and do a fitment?Understandable but it seems there is more space with the smaller hitch . Otherwise people wouldn’t differentiate the two .
even if it means you can fit 31.6 with the class IV , 31.7 with the KDSS spacer.
Than you can fit 3_.__ with the class III. and __.__ with the class III And the KDSS spacer.
I just want to figure out that buy once goldi locks zone . And would almost prefer pizza cutters
Do you have a favorite shop for tires, if so can they mount one on your spare and do a fitment?
You can make it easy on them and have the spare already dismounted and sitting in the back of your rig and when they do the tire swap, you can do the crawl-under and checl fitment.
A tire shop would be far more likely to accommodate if you can minimize their tech's time futzing with pulling and remounting the tire.
On the off chance you see this after 3 years, it looks like you didnt have the class III hitch at stock height and added it some time after lifting? Did you add swaybar spacers along with the hitch to make these work? I currently dont have a hitch and would love this size tire.That's the exact same size tire I ran on my GX prior to lifting it (and even after for a few months) except that I was running the 18" flavor (255/70/18) on the stock GX460 wheels which are 7.5" wide like the Trail wheels. I didn't have any issue with this setup both when stock or when lifted. See pics below for reference.
Stock height
![]()
![]()
Lifted
![]()
![]()
![]()
255/70/18 on 7.5" wide stock GX wheel vs. 275/70/17 on 8.5" wide SCS wheel. Not a whole hell of a lot of difference in height, mostly width.
![]()
I know this is just me, and it's an unpopular opinion, but that is a god-awful amount of brain power and effort to go to in order to have a matching spare. I just run the OEM spare in the OEM space, with OEM KDSS bushings, and an OEM hitch. The number of flats I have experienced in 4 decades of "my-style" of off roading, (which are 4, all in one week-long trip where I had 2 very mismatched spares, and trips to a tire store along the way for patches) and the negligible impact of running mismatched tires for a very, very, very short time and distance, make this game of running a matching spare have the most insanely negative return on investment, both mental and financial, amid any aspect of owning and operating the GX.Understandable but it seems there is more space with the smaller hitch . Otherwise people wouldn’t differentiate the two .
even if it means you can fit 31.6 with the class IV , 31.7 with the KDSS spacer.
Than you can fit 3_.__ with the class III. and __.__ with the class III And the KDSS spacer.
I just want to figure out that buy once goldi locks zone . And would almost prefer pizza cutters
To not discredit your post, my personal preference will always to have a matching spare after personally having "grenaded" a Toyota Previa all-wheel-drive drive train (trans, diffs, etc.) with the wrong size spare, I'm a little gun shy keeping anything less than the right size spare. Fortunately it was still under warranty and Toyota paid the entire $3,500 bill (back in 1995 dollars).I know this is just me, and it's an unpopular opinion, but that is a god-awful amount of brain power and effort to go to in order to have a matching spare. I just run the OEM spare in the OEM space, with OEM KDSS bushings, and an OEM hitch. The number of flats I have experienced in 4 decades of "my-style" of off roading, (which are 4, all in one week-long trip where I had 2 very mismatched spares, and trips to a tire store along the way for patches) and the negligible impact of running mismatched tires for a very, very, very short time and distance, make this game of running a matching spare have the most insanely negative return on investment, both mental and financial, amid any aspect of owning and operating the GX.
I will humbly be the first to post here, CL, and every known GX social media group on the planet when running my OEM spare with 32" tires grenades ANY part of my driveline, but for now, I'm pretty confident in the Torsen transfer case, and the ability of my differentials to differentiate, that I don't lose ANY sleep over it. Literally none...
A five tire rotation saves you literally no money over a 4-tire rotation, and if you have a matching spare and are NOT diligent about 5-tire rotations, you'll eventually end up with a spare that is over an inch larger in diameter than your other tires anyway. These rigs aren't Subarus, or other makes with a viscous coupling, and it's well documented how much difference the Torsen transfer case can withstand. But I think a lot of GX owners just like to have a(ny) reason to throw cash at mods.
In the links below are examples of "my-style" of off roading and some pictures of actual terrain you can survive traveling on with mismatched spares. Granted, it's 60 series, v GX, but I ran dozens of miles with t-case in 4lo with 3 different sized tires on. Was running 33x10.50x15 BFG AT's, the 2 spares on the driver's side were significantly smaller than that, and different from each other. I had one flat on the uphill, and then 2 flats at once on the wash-out. I got the one flat repaired during a stop in Globe, AZ mid-trip, so I always had 2 spares. After getting 2 flats at once, I drove for probably 80 miles with no-spares (a little stressful), but got them both fixed in Cibeque, AZ ( a really, really, really small town) before hitting the highway home. I see the argument posted a lot that you HAVE to replace a tire with an exact match, and you CAN'T do that in small towns, etc etc. Sure, "IF" you majorly blow a sidewall or something, that's true. But those are the rarest of events, right? C'mon, even if you blow a sidewall, and can't find a match in the smallest town you're in, buy the closest size you can for the least money, and use that as a spare for the rest of the trip until you get home. It's still THOUSANDS of dollars cheaper than some of the options out there to run 5 matching oversized tires on the GX.
Clearly, if we're talking Rubicon-level rock crawling, then yeah, I'd probably throw a matching spare in the back. But if you're doing that, you probably don't want an OEM trailer hitch and OEM KDSS bars on there anyway.
![]()
A flat while climbing a rough dirt surface
forum.ih8mud.com
![]()
8000 lb rig, Really??
forum.ih8mud.com
Yeah, but you're an engineer, and the Previa had a viscous coupling all-wheel drive system. I get the PTSD, but it's an apples to oranges comparison.To not discredit your post, my personal preference will always to have a matching spare after personally having "grenaded" a Toyota Previa all-wheel-drive drive train (trans, diffs, etc.) with the wrong size spare, I'm a little gun shy keeping anything less than the right size spare. Fortunately it was still under warranty and Toyota paid the entire $3,500 bill (back in 1995 dollars).
But... that's me.
grabbed method rims w the same +25 offset. put on 255/75/17 (32.1").
no change in mpg's either. tad better actually as i dropped weight at each wheel vs oem. hope that helps someone.
It definitely helps. Any chance you would be willing to share a pic or two?