Does it make sense to have dedicated street and off-tires? Which ones?

Hello,

Quick background on my thought process. I bought by 4Runner almost a year ago and it is the first 4x4 I have had since a CJ7 in high school 22 years ago. I have been in the car scene and spending my time doing track days and what not since college. But family time, kids sports, and a change in priority as far as life experiences brought me to the 4Runner as my every day and adventure vehicle. I really enjoy it and am looking to start doing some off road adventures in the new year. No rock crawling but want to hit some fun and moderately challenging trails around California or when we go on vacation. Last year the car was only 2 weeks old when we went to Moab so I missed out on a lot of potential awesomeness given we were in a stock SR5 with crapstone highway tires. We did manage one trail in Arches and I had to turn around at one point cause the tires just weren’t up to the task and I didn’t want to risk it given were so far from home and had a week of road trip still ahead of us. Anyhow, I have been mostly lurking on here doing research and reading other people’s experiences. I don’t plan to build out the 4Runner too much, probably some Bilstein 6112/5100 to level and improve handling and minor lighting/audio upgrades. I did get a set of FN fx pro wheels for the look and still have my stock SR5 wheels. So I know there are a ton of tire threads out there and I have tried to read most of them. It seems the majority is about getting a tire that can do everything. Street, Snow, off road, etc. Well in my experience of running track days, while the best street tires can make for good track tires, it’s really best to have dedicated sets. Especially if you are driving said vehicle home or all the time. The off road scene seems similar in that you have to make compromises when it comes to what you want from a tire. So after no one wanted to buy my perfect stock wheels for cheap, I started thinking, maybe it makes sense to put some nice street tires on the FN’s and get some dedicated off road tires for the stock wheels. I have air tools and swapping out in my garage would be easy on a day I was going to hit the trails or for a weekend get away. Am I crazy? Or over thinking this? Can I really just get a set of KO2’s or AT3W’s and say done?

For the TLDR crowd: if you could have two sets of no compromise tires, one street, one off road, what would they be?

I was thinking Michelin LTX street tires and off-road BFG MT or Yoko MT or ? Thinking 275 or 285 E load for the off-road durability and stock size for the street. I want good handling, quiet, and good in the rain for street and tough, and good for rocks, dirt, and some mud for off-road. No crawling or crazy stuff.

Thoughts?

Just KO2 and call the day... make sure u buy warrentee... so few years down the road u can have a new set with just labour cost...


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I don't think you're crazy. Very reasonable line of thought given your background!

Here is my 2 cents:
I would run a good A/T tire (KO2's, Duratracs, etc.) and leave them on all year round. While they may not be best suited for dedicated street tires, they do well and traction/performance is never an issue. A/T tires also do well off-road. They are not dedicated off-road tires, but you shouldn't struggle given that you are going to be running moderate trails. What I think about is that a 4Runner is by no means an on road performance vehicle, so why would you run a dedicated street tire for increased performance? If you run a dedicated street tire, your performance increase will be so minimal, its not worth the effort of constantly swapping tires.

The reason why most guys/gals on the forums here run A/T tires year round is because they work...and damn well!

I wouldn't want that hassle but then I prefer things easy especialy when it comes to my ride. I run duratracs and in 35k miles I've never even had a flat and still can't seem to wear them out. Great on road and off. The only thing I will do different is check into getting a more narrow tire next time. 285's are more width than I want or need plus they tend to float in deeper snow, or so it seems. Probably look into 255"s maybe next time, but another set of duratracs for certain. Changing tires with the season would be way to annoying IMO. Where I live most people swap out for studded in winter. No thanks. Keeping it simple.

Get winters dude

916T4R said:

Hello,
The off road scene seems similar in that you have to make compromises when it comes to what you want from a tire. So after no one wanted to buy my perfect stock wheels for cheap, I started thinking, maybe it makes sense to put some nice street tires on the FN’s and get some dedicated off road tires for the stock wheels. I have air tools and swapping out in my garage would be easy on a day I was going to hit the trails or for a weekend get away. Am I crazy? Or over thinking this?

Thoughts?

Click to expand...

So the deal with track and street is that track tires wear fast and are quickly "used up" both on the street or track and are terrible for cold/rain even when new. While there is some compromise this isn't really true for aggressive ATs or MTs. They both wear reasonably well although not as well as street tires and can usually handle rain. Obviously, the 4runner isn't the king of street handling and street tires are kind of a waste unless you are putting crazy miles on your 4runner so that you need street tires for the 50k - 70k lifespan. I'd actually run winter tires instead. You'll see a much bigger improvement between an AT/MT and a winter tire than an AT/MT and a street tire since temperature is the real challenge for a single compound rubber tire. I run MTs in the summer and Blizzacks in the winter. The difference a dedicated winter tire makes below 50F even on dry pavement is astounding, on wet pavement it's nearly unbelievable.

thanks for the quick feedback guys. Didn't think about a winter tire. that's a good idea and more food for thought. We got my mom a set of Blizzaks a few years back for her X3 and she loved the way they rode so much that she kept them on all year round. She's retired so only 6-7k a year.

Love to hear from others as well.

as a fellow track junkie car and sportbike racer, if you try out a set of k02, duratracs, coopers or at3ws im sure you will be impressed and just have one set thatll serve all your uses.

if i were to ever be forced to run 2 sets, itd be a sipeless dirt/mud tire and winter set.

I have two sets...

I run the stock Bridgestones most of the time, save my KM 2's (bought used) for when I'm hitting the trails. I have a good floor jack, it doesn't take long to swap out. I just live with the "low tire" light being on with the O/R tires.

Glad I had two sets when my teen was driving my T4R more than me; a little lower and better wet traction, it gave ne a little piece of mind.

Yes, the truck looks dorky lifted with stock tires... but I don't care! :moon:

NZDZRT

the Ko2 Ride great and are only a tad louder than my stock dunlops but they handle dirt and snow well. The ko2 are rated for snow and any other terrain. I have not had issues in the rain as well. But they will not make a good track tire! Now a MT will make noise

No need to compromise like track tires.
I ran dunlop star spec II year round but my car was only driven to and from the track and never daily.

I do. I have Limited 20" wheels with street tires on them (275 70 20) and 17" wheels with offroad tires on them. It only takes about 2 minutes to swap them out in my garage. I have two full size floor jacks and an impact. The only downside is that they take up space. For me it was worth the extra cost for quiet street tires. Especially when I'm towing our camper half way across the country.

The downside is that - if you're like me - the offroad tires will get old before they wear out. I don't put a ton of miles on them. That makes it hard to explain why I need to replace them when I want to change tire size with 90% remaining tires. The plus side is that the street tires are way cheaper.

I could live with one set for sure. If I didn't tow our camper with the 4runner I'd almost never take it on road trips. We also have an RX350 - so that's just a better highway vehicle anyway. And for local driving the tires really don't matter. For me it just makes those long road trips more comfortable. Since I put 3-5000 miles a year on with the camper, it's been worth having a second set of street tires.

In a perfect world I'd have 3 or 4 vehicles for every scenario - but with the 4runner having two sets of tires allows it to do highway cruising and offroad pretty well.

Street tires and AT tires, 2 sets

The biggest advantage of street tires is gas mileage and the efficiency of the stock street tire size. The winter tires are another possibility I hadn't thought of. You're in Sacramento, CA so you can decide how much you need a winter tire, depending on where you drive in winter and how many miles you drive on the street.

You already have the rims you can't sell so you have a choice. You're going to be limited on how large of a tire you can put on those stock 7" wide rims. For a 285,75,17 the recommended wheel size is 8" to 9" wide.

One other consideration for getting AT tires is if you get a larger tire you begin to need a lift to avoid rubbing. If a lift is part of your plan then larger AT/MT tires are an option.

The only other consideration is if you keep tires for a very long time, they rot in the smoggy air after a few years. Then they start to wear very quickly. If you stored one tire or the other for a long time, they'd age before they wore out from wear. Then the cost of owning two sets would go up.

I vote for one set of tires, but it's because I'm lazy and try to keep things simply. Of course have dedicated sets of tires are always a good idea, ideally it would be nice to have not only different tires but also different vehicles for different tasks. For me changing tires would be too much trouble because I try to get out every chance I can, especially in summer, sometimes it happens on short notice. Another thing is that sometimes I might go offroad when I don't plan to, like taking an unexpected detour or taking shortcut which starts as a paved road but becomes a trail after awhile. Also snow is big factor where I live, so I would need another set of tires for show. If you enjoy driving 4Runner off the beaten path you might find yourself in the same situation as me and after awhile you will start carrying recovery kit, first aid, basic survival stuff in your trunk all the time and make sure that your truck is always ready for adventures : )

So I'd say that if your life is well organized, you're not lazy and/or you're going offroad not very often - having 2 sets of tires is a good idea.

2 sets

Swarty said:

So the deal with track and street is that track tires wear fast and are quickly "used up" both on the street or track and are terrible for cold/rain even when new. While there is some compromise this isn't really true for aggressive ATs or MTs. They both wear reasonably well although not as well as street tires and can usually handle rain. Obviously, the 4runner isn't the king of street handling and street tires are kind of a waste unless you are putting crazy miles on your 4runner so that you need street tires for the 50k - 70k lifespan. I'd actually run winter tires instead. You'll see a much bigger improvement between an AT/MT and a winter tire than an AT/MT and a street tire since temperature is the real challenge for a single compound rubber tire. I run MTs in the summer and Blizzacks in the winter. The difference a dedicated winter tire makes below 50F even on dry pavement is astounding, on wet pavement it's nearly unbelievable.

Click to expand...

I run two sets, both on stock rims, will upgrade the summer/off road tires for the summer but currently stock size Cooper AT3's, winter tires are stock size Nokias. Might bump up to a 265/70 when those wear to get a little taller and a little thinner tire. But my vote is two sets

I have 2 sets only because my Limited came with 20's. I switch back and forth somewhat just to wear out the 20's some but the KO2s are on 90% of the time. Ultimately I would just sell the 20's and only run the KO2 tires.

I got my SR5 with the crappy Bridgestones this time last year and immediately put snow tires on it. Blizzaks. Switched back to the Bridgestones last spring and got some mileage back. Better handling too in the warm weather. Blizzaks went back on a month ago and I sold the Duelers for like $100. In the spring I will buy an AT tire, but I still don't think I want to run it year round. The snow tires are just that good in the winter. I have to travel via car throughout the NE in the winter so snow ability is a priority for me. If you live in the south or something it's totally different. My 4 Runner with snow tires will run circles around my JK with 37" MT/R's on snowy roads.

Kind of funny actually, my wife wanted to take the kids to the library last week and it was snowing hard with a couple inches on the streets already. She says "Can you drive us? Is the Jeep back together yet?" I had been putting 1 1/2 ton steering on it the night before. I said, "Yeah I will take you but what does that matter, we would take the Toyota anyway. The Jeep sucks in the snow."

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Like others have said, a good set of AT tires and call it done. I would disagree with going with an E rated tire though if you only plan on doing moderate trails and it’s your dd. I know a lot of people sware by E rated tires saying their vehicle rides so much better with them and so on but the truth is you end up with a worse ride and worse fuel economy. In addition, you shouldn’t need to worry too much about sidewall punctures on moderate trails. I think a P or SL rated AT would suit your needs just fine as it would for most people even though they convince themselves they need something more.

New owner 2022 4Runner

I had two sets of tires and wheels on my 07 FJ Crusier both Generals. Grabber HTS for the road, Grabber AT2 for winter and fire roads.
PITA switching back and forth. Won't go to that expense again so I'm considering Cooper AT4S or General Grabber ATX to replace the factory Dulaps.
Any thoughts anyone?

Logansky said:

I had two sets of tires and wheels on my 07 FJ Crusier both Generals. Grabber HTS for the road, Grabber AT2 for winter and fire roads.
PITA switching back and forth. Won't go to that expense again so I'm considering Cooper AT4S or General Grabber ATX to replace the factory Dulaps.
Any thoughts anyone?

Click to expand...

There are 100000 tire threads on here all of which have differing opinions of what's good or bad, what balances well, how they perform in rain and snow, etc. Best you get what tires you want and let it rip.

FWIW, both of those are good options. As are Falken AT3W, KO2s, and Nitto Ridge Grapplers.

I have never lived in a latitude where I had to have two sets. We get snow but some years we get none.


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New owner 2022 4Runner

Pedro367 said:

There are 100000 tire threads on here all of which have differing opinions of what's good or bad, what balances well, how they perform in rain and snow, etc. Best you get what tires you want and let it rip.

FWIW, both of those are good options. As are Falken AT3W, KO2s, and Nitto Ridge Grapplers.

Click to expand...

We live in the Pennsylvania mountains with a half mile gravel drive back to our house. I'm an old fart (74) so we need a vehicle and tires to get us out in God forbid we have to make the 14 mile drive to the hospital.
That's why I'm considering changing out the factory street tires for something a bit more reassuring.

Logansky