Nice. You go with alum or steel?
What did you do with your Tundra or Sequoia this weekend? (15 Viewers)
- Thread starter Bryanseye
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Steel. Better protection for sure. I plan on ordering their tank skid plate soon too.
I'm sure it's not an option but worth mentioning anyway- dropping down to 17's will give you access to 255/85s.
I actually have a set of almost new 285 75 17s on 6 hole Toyota wheels. But they're in Montana with all my stuff.
If I could find some 17" wheels the 255 85 17 or 285 75 18s would be about exactly what I'm looking for. Unfortunately tundra 17" wheels are close to unobtainium up here and no one wants to ship them up normally so I've gotta do a freight forward LTL to get them. But I might swap around when I get back.
joseywales
Renaissance Redneck
The Cooper AT3 XLTs are a great tire. I think it’s very subjective too, this whole snowflake crap. I have two sets of Toyo AT2s in slightly different sizes for my Tundra. One set is not snowflake rated, and despite have 1/3 the tread of the snowflake rated set, the bald ass M+S set is far better in snow! I also ran the Falken AT3s on my Sequoia, and despite being snowflake rated, they absolutely SUCK in snow. I got rid of them as quick as I could. I live in a pocket of weird snow, in an area with high mountains and cold dry snow, but I’m in a valley with a big lake fed by hotsprings. I think that’s why our snow is weird. I’ve lived in ski towns a large portion of my life, and I’ve never seen snow that glazes up so fast. The road I live on is MAYBE a 1% grade, and I can’t drive up it in 2wd with the Falkens.
I actually have a set of almost new 285 75 17s on 6 hole Toyota wheels. But they're in Montana with all my stuff.
That's too bad about the logistics. I don't know what Tundra wheels you have, but the split five spokes are 7.5" wide and are perfect for the pizza cutters. I see sets of five of those wheels around here for $175-$250 all the time. What do you mean ship normally? Like FedEx or UPS? Hell, I'll do that for you if you want.
These get my vote. The more I've driven mine, the more I've liked them on and off road; if anything, the reviews underhype them. No idea how they'd fare in mud or snow, but we'll see what happens here in a few months.
Those Mickeys are badass. Too bad they dont come in a 37x12.50r18 or they'd be at the top of my list. I only read good reviews on them.
joseywales
Renaissance Redneck
My kid has the AT XDs on his ‘07 Tundra. They have been great in the snow but are CRAZY loud on the highway.
Snow is so variable. It can have completely different characteristics depending on the temperature and moisture content/structure of the snow. There's probably no perfect tire for all the snow and ice types. What I did find really interesting was a demonstration I saw where they had 3 hockey pucks made from different tire rubber compounds. All were totally smooth rubber pucks the same size and shape as hockey pucks. And they pushed them all with a wide push stick so they all were slid out together and the winter and all season compounds stopped significantly shorter than the summer tire rubber. The point of the video (was from Michelin) was to show that it is the rubber more than tread pattern that matters most on ice. Pretty interesting.
AT3s (pre-XLT version) is what I have sitting in Montana. I had them for my 4Runner and thought they were excellent tires for all around use there. They were super durable, great on desert tracks, slick rock, and snow. And they were pretty good on the highway too. They didn't seem quite as good on snow and ice as the Michelin Defenders - the Defenders despite not having the symbol on them are pretty good. It looks like Cooper is discontinuing the AT3s htough. I sent an email to Cooper to confirm that they were all the same treat compound before I ordered them to make sure that wasn't the reason some sizes were snowflake rated and others weren't, but haven't heard back. I see that they're listed on some websites as discontinued. I think they're being replaced by the "Road and Trail" tire line. The R&T models look great - one of the test videos I saw had them out perform the at3-4S version in the snow which is super impressive. The 4S version is really good in snow - but only comes in small sizes
I do 99% highway so I'm trying to stay away from noisy tires. Everything in AK is multiple hours drive away. Sometimes it feels like I live in my truck seat. I'm doing 6-8 hours of drive time almost every weekend it seems. Otherwise I'd go for something more aggressive for sure. Mostly looking at highway/all season options. It's boring.
People are usually asking $6-800 for a set of OEM takeoff wheels around here. In Utah I could pick up a complete takeoff set for $200. Shipping is artificially expensive for anything that doesn't normally come by air. There's no railroad connection. The roads are terrible and truckers since covid are generally declining to take the routes to AK because of how poorly canada treated them. (I initially thought it was just truckers being ornery, but after going up and down a few times - it is a Canada problem not a trucker problem.) Ships that seem like the obvious answer are mostly legally prohibited by the Jones Act. It basically requires old, small, inefficient ships for any transport between American ports. It's about 5 times as expensive to ship large items from Seattle to Alaska than from Japan to Seattle. In my estimation it's the single biggest hurdle to Alaska economy ever meaningfully growing. Believe it or not - it's literally cheaper to ship oil from the north slope of Alaska to a refinery in the Caribbean by route all the way around south america (can't go through the panama canal) by nearly $5 per barrel than it is to go from Alaska to Seattle because of the Jones act.
The only relatively economical options I've found is using a freight forward company like Carlile who I have an account with. I ship to an address in Tacoma Washington and they will then put in a container ship and send up to the port of Anchorage where I can pick up. A set of 4 tires is about $200 that way. Fedex and UPS would both be air freight. They're about $4-600 for a set for shipping up.
I recently returned from vacation in southeast AK. I paid like $10 for a stick of deodorant at a grocery store there. Beautiful state though. I had a blast visiting (mostly fishing). Would love to go back every other summer or so.
Every place to live has its pros and cons. Although, overall, full time AK residency seems a bit like living life in hard mode compared to the lower 48.
Every place to live has its pros and cons. Although, overall, full time AK residency seems a bit like living life in hard mode compared to the lower 48.
It is with kids for sure. I hope they get some unique life experiences out of it. We're fortunate enough to be able to travel somewhere sunny and warm a few times each winter. Without that it would be a lot more challenging. I chose to stay an extra year. We're long term tourists. Most of Alaska's issues are self inflicted political decisions. It should be the American equal to Sweden or Norway.
I think we'll probably buy a few acres of land (it's dirt cheap) and build a low cost dry cabin of some sort before heading out next spring. Possibly just a steel building and leave our travel trailer and maybe the Tundra or find an older cheap truck to leave here for summer vacations every year or two. If I end up with a remote work option I think it would be awesome to spend a month or two every summer here. Then I'll bring my tires with me as checked baggage
haha.
God damn, dude. That's insane. Honest question- why are you still there? I get that it's gorgeous, but the logistics of, well... everything sounds like a real pain right square in the giblets.
Washed his and hers yesterday.
Nothing on the Tundra unfortunately, but got a whole lot done on the 4runner. Bump stops, skid plates, dr KDSS panhard relocation, oil change. All in 90* 
.
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My Wife lived in AK growing up and wanted to come back up for a few years before the kids start school. I didn't want to. It's a mixed bag like most places. For me it's been fun at times, but I'm ready to go.
It's interesting to look at the specs on tread width on some of the options. A 285/75/18 in Cooper AT3 has a tread width of only 8.3" while a 265/70/18 is 8.7" tread width. The 285 truly is a very tall skinny tire. The 285/75/18 ends up being narrower at the tread than even 265 models. And in the replacement R&T a 265/70/18 went from 8.7" tread width in the AT3 down to 7.8", but the 275/65/18 is 8.9" wide at the tread. That's 14% difference in tread width where intuitively it would be about 4%. The Michelins are just as unusual - the 275/65/18s come in a few flavors; the SL one is 7.6" tread width that is narrower than the 265/70/18, but also the LT version of the 265/70 is 8.8" wide. That's a significant difference, the LT being a lot wider. But oddly the LT version of the 275/70/18 is only 8.2" - narrower again.
It seems like the tread width doesn't correlate very closely with the section width.
RCI skid plates shipped for the tundra!
Installed TEQ Headlights. I unplugged the resistor to disable DRL. They came with a big resistor but I'm not sure what to do with it. I think it belongs in the passenger side headlamp socket.
I installed a new reverse camera cable. It worked before I buttoned up all the panels but quit working with everything sealed. I ordered a new heavy duty cable. Hopefully that one will be better quality.
New speakers going in tomorrow if it isn't too hot outside. Found a set of new JBL 3ohm speakers on fleabay.
I installed a new reverse camera cable. It worked before I buttoned up all the panels but quit working with everything sealed. I ordered a new heavy duty cable. Hopefully that one will be better quality.
New speakers going in tomorrow if it isn't too hot outside. Found a set of new JBL 3ohm speakers on fleabay.
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Changed air filter and added Perry parts bump stops to the Tundra.
Still no 37s?
