Im currently looking to upgrade my 265s tires to a 275 or 285, 285 seems like the better choice, however I cannot afford to regear for a long foreseeable future.....do 285s put a lot a stress or wear/tear on components that can potentially or will damage systems/parts on the vehicle if you do not regear with the tire size?

I was at a dealership talking about upgrades that can still be legal under Toyota warranty and some comment came around where he said some guy put 285s on his runner and his rear part of the drivetrain or something along those lines failed and they wouldn't cover his warranty plan. So I'm a little concern on how quick or if at all failures happen with putting 285s on a stock 4runner or just sticking with 275s and being safe. This is all for long term daily driving vehicle use with weekend overloading from time to time.

You hear failures with larger tires more because larger tires make people do more knuckleheaded things.

I think re-gearing probably causes more wear for most situations. I re-geared and then un-regeared because my highway mpg dropped significantly suggesting that the engine was burning a lot more fuel than necessary and I'm guessing that all of the additional revolutions of every bearing and gear probably outweigh the benefits of reduced torque. The main reason is that the gearing options suck. Going from 3.73 to 4.56 is a huge jump for a small change in tire height. At least for me - who does quite a bit of highway miles, I'm happier with stock gears. And that's with 285/75/17 tires. I'd really love to have both the low gearing and highway gearing available with more transmission gears. That's been beaten to death already. If/when I end up with another daily and this becomes a more trail oriented vehicle, then I'll probably go back to 4.56 gears and maybe jump to 35" tires.

Also - food for thought, you can buy OEM takeoffs for around $400/set. If you did have something to wrong, it's pretty cheap to swap on some stock size tires before going in for warranty repairs. My dealer has never said a word about larger tires, but I've also only had one warranty repair - a front diff needle bearing. Many dealers here sell them new with a lift and 285s on the lot.

Liked. I have 285s, no problems so far. What would have been nice if 4Runners had the 4.10's like Jeeps with a 6 speed tranny like on the GX460 and a geared down transfer case on TRD Off-roads and Pros. That way you could have good highway gearing as well as good off-road gearing. I think Toyota designed all 4Runners to be more of a mall crawler than a rock crawler. Jeep on the other hand has the Sport as a mall crawler and the Rubicon as a rock crawler.

I'm of the mind that re-greaing at 285/70 or smaller is not necessary and will not stress your system by much.

My comment to most putting on 33s or bigger is that changing the wheel offsets, especially large offsets and even worse adding spacers is risking shortening your wheel bearing lifespan. I have no proof or data of my concerns here but as the offset (moment arm) increases, you will be putting your bearings into eccentric loading which in theory will wear them out faster than not.

I’m running 255/75/17 with a Toytec Bilstein lift and I put 33k miles so far no breakage or sign of wear and tear.The dealership I deal with has a bunch of mechanics running 4runners and Tacoma’s with the same or similar set up and result.


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