Hey All! I finally got a puncture that my Firestone AT's couldn't shrug off (not for lack of trying, it was a big frickin nail and the tire stayed fully inflated until I removed it).

I've had these tires for about 30k miles. I think they still have some life left (see pics), but once they're done, I'm gonna downsize back to something lighter. I'm currently looking at a set of Hankook Dynapro ATM's of the 265/70/17 (113T) variety. (Currently running Firestone AT 285/70/17 (117T).)

I'm debating the options though:
1. Buy just one to replace the spare and hope the same tire is still available when I want to replace the remaining 4.

2. Buy 5 and only mount 1, store the rest in the garage till I get the remaining life from my current tires. (Any suggestions on how to store tires?)

3. Buy 5 and mount all, and just throw away the remaining life on the current tires.


What do all of you think?

Pics of current tires, and the puncture, for the schadenfreude. :P

Your pics aren't showing up for me. But if weight is one of your concerns, you may consider the P-rated 285/70/17 Falken AT3W. They have exceptional reviews. I ran them on my Tacoma and loved them!

Pics should be working now.

I'm having trouble finding info about those tires on tirerack or consumer reports. Do you have a tire comparison website of choice?

I mostly just search through different forums.

Here's one over in the 5th gen section:

New Falken AT tire (A/T3W)

And one on TW:

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/...-a-t3w.419869/

If I were you I would go with option #3, BUT with the exception of "...just throw away the remaining life on the current tires...." instead I would put your old tires on Craig's List or similar and sell them!

That's not a bad idea! Where do you think I should start the asking price?

That would be for you to decide, look at the tires as if they weren't yours and you were going to buy them then consider what you would be willing to pay for them and then lower the price a bit and they should sell.

I say to lower the price because no matter how hard you try you will think they're worth more than a person that has never seen them before and also didn't buy them new.

Buy one used tire at a big tire retailer...buys you time & saves $$.

Plug the hole in the sidewall, and mount it as a spare / I've used a spare 2x in +40 years.
- chances are, you'll never have to use the repaired spare...for normal highway driving
- if spare has to come into use...drive to tire shop & get all tires replaced with new ASAP

No point in buying tires & storing them / expiration dates gets closer.

Well that's an interesting idea. The tire shop told me they couldn't repair a sidewall puncture. Is there a secret handshake to get them to do it?

Go to a "non chain" tire shop or old service station in a rural area and tell you just need it for a spare and have them put a boot/patch in it.

I'll give that a shot. Thanks!

This is what I would do. I never really wear my tires 100% down because I like having decent tread should I have to get out of some gnarly terrain down the road. I typically sell my tires when they roughly have about 1/4" to 3/16" of tread left. I don't ask a whole lot for them but usually I can cover the cost of mounting and balancing plus some of the tires. If I know someone in need of tires that cannot afford any, I will donate the used tires to them. I usually never let the tire shop have them unless they are buying them.

You gonna downsize your testicles to go with your smaller tires?

Joking aside why are you looking for something "lighter?"

Well technically they're right, there's a lot of variables involved that would result in anything from the tire repair just not sealing to the sidewall tearing due to the weakspot introduced by the nail.

But there's a lot of "it didn't kill me yet/my granddaddy didn't die from it/Joe-Shmo Sunshade Mechanic does it for me all the time so it's okay 100% of the time" people and they don't usually understand the difference between anecdotal evidence and empirical evidence. But hey, there's something to be said that the tire didn't spontaneously burst into nuclear fire because they repaired it incorrectly I suppose.

Realistically? You could probably rope plug it and use it as a spare (hopefully it won't fail when needed) as you're not likely to need a spare often. But then again your "backup" is basically duct-taped which can provide some semblance of doubt (not sure if I personally would want doubt in a back-up system myself)

;) yeah yeah lol

I noticed a pretty considerable drop in acceleration and fuel economy when I got my 285's. I'm not doing nearly as much offroading since moving to socal, so I just want to align my tires with my actual use.

And here I am in SoCal wanting to go from 33s to 35's.

I hear you though, if I was commuting like I used to I wouldn't want 33s.