Through the four 4runners and many other 4wd trucks and suvs and the many tires i've gone thru, my favorite tire is the Firestone destination MT.

It's not the oil pricing, as was pointed out above. It's the rubber shortage from Asia, where most of it comes from. I've heard of rubber tree infestations, or rubber trees burning, but whatever the reason, the supply is short.
In fact, Goodyear is starting to use soybean oil in place of petroleum with some of their tires. The ones I buy for my Police Interceptors are using soybean oil in their compound.
You think getting new shoes for your ride is hard? Try racing... I know of a few local circle-track (Sprint car and Modifieds) that are second-guessing if they will have rubber to race with this summer.

A person’s politics don’t turn me away from their ideas. I’ve come to realize that neither of the two parties care about skilled labor. So I don’t expect too much from someone’s announced allegiance to either one.

I read the page from the link. Robert Reich (why did I initially picture Rob Reiner!) addresses the elephant in the room directly. Companies that go public put themselves on a treadmill, they live and die by the stock performance each quarter. There’s no reserves left to pull back the slingshot a bit, so to speak, and make a worthwhile investment that’s better in the long run.

(If we-the-plebeians are advised against day trading from every finance guru out there, why are shareholders allowed to be impulsive and demanding in ways that will ultimately either bankrupt a company or trigger stock buybacks? Is it really in the best interest of all involved to contract out labor for a short term savings, in exchange for losing tighter quality control and strategic vision?)

He has an interesting stance against monopolies. Stricter antitrust regulations. Geographic monopolies will be interesting to address. I work in utilities where it’s not practical to run three sets of power lines and three sets of gas lines in a neighborhood, from all different companies. It should be sufficient to either cap prices at an absolute ceiling (in cases where they’ve already run uncontrolled too long) or set maximum rate cap increases per year, as a preventative measure.


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They go up to what ever price people are willing & able to pay. The fed printed more money in the last 2 year period than they did in entire previous 20 year period. It's get's in to people's hands through the stock market bubble, leverage from inflated house values, increased credit card limits, salary increases, business loans for doggy daycares and the like, and plain old mailing people checks. This is what you get. Now it is inflating needs (food) on top of wants (fancy tires) so the fed had to begin pulling the plug. Prices will go down when people stop buying them and "price destruction" sets in. It will start with KO2s, then the step down ones when people start running them bald because milk is $12 a gallon and they are underwater on their house.

Tire Rack has them for $253 with $70 off if you buy four.

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There, you said it. The free market punishes us for the sins of the most desperate individual. And we all have to pay that price.


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Yep, because the fed has bailed them out by printing every time. Socialism for corporations, capitalism for you and me. All these corps used it to "invest" in stock buybacks rather than real productivity. All the care about is next quarter. Same reason they off-shored everything knowing it was a horrible long-term strategic idea, but if everyone else is doing it you either do it or go bankrupt. Now there is the Ukraine thing disrupting oil and fertilizer, rubber tree problems apparently and whatever else. A real mess.

Kind of like steroids in sports. If everyone else is doing it you have to do it too, even though everyone knows your balls will stop working when you're inevitably forced to come off, leaving you worse than the before. We're at the point where our receptors have burned out from chasing gains with increasingly massive dosages and the fed is attempting "Post Cycle Therapy" on a 14 year long steroid binge.

I read a while ago about Costco chartering rheir own ships and basically starting their own seperate supply chain when the covid problems started. They also have a 15% markup no-matter-what policy because they make the bulk of their profit from membership fees not selling products. If they find a way to save money they pass it through to members. For example they set up their own eyeglass lens factory to get around that Italian corporation who has a monopoly on eyeglasses.

Dunno if you'll have any luck with tires but worth checking Costco for sure.

100%.

Nailed it like a shingle! Better hope the US has access to TRT, while we’re doing analogies!

Ya know, I don’t want to shame people who paid over MSRP for a 4Runner, we’re all one big community. But it does bother me to see people get taken advantage of.

Until last year, if you paid sticker, you didn’t even try. Now, it’s a rare exception to see dealers whose policies forbid markups of any kind. Unfortunately these same dealers don’t usually have much in the way of selection, either.

It used to be, the only people paying above sticker were like 3 rich guys trying to outbid one another at the Ferrari dealership in California. One might pay $30k over to take it home today, while the other two take allocations.

Parents who have never seen such an economic climate don’t want to see their (adult) children taken shaken down by $2000 city rents and $5.00 gas. Quick death or slow if you commute longer.

I have said for about 3 years now, there are no more advantages, only disadvantages. Too many A-players in the game. If you’re not dual degreed, dual income, no / late kids, work from home, with generational wealth, you’re already behind.

What happens when there are too many A players? What’s happening RIGHT NOW.


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Two of the tires I am looking at in 255/80/17 are on back order. Odd part is there is no ETA on any shipments.

A child could understand why and how we got into this mess, and we have a $30 trillion national debt on top of it that that child will have to pay after we are gone. Thumbs up on thread.


Now back to the tire issues. I want to put K02 tires on my TRD Offroad but I don't want any rubbing and I don't want any cutting. Can anyone verify that the 275/70/17 will work with stock wheels and no lift? (stock is 265/70/17). Can you easily re-calibrate the speed sensors to account for the diameter change? there are variables that can be changed by the dealer, can those be changed by anyone with a good scan tool?

Even 275s will likely rub a little on the front fender liner.

They will fit stock wheels and no lift.

Lift does not help with rubbing on ifs front suspension.

There is no simple way to recalibrate speed sensors. Nether the dealer nor and scan tool can do it. Only current option is a 4 channel speed correction that you hardwire in. The speed is calculated from the 4 abs sensors.

Couldn't agree more with this. I've always tried to keep these rants to myself and hate to bash people who are stoked about buying 4runners and mods but I think it's on the back of everyone's minds now that we beginning to see it become a mainstream talking point due to what's been going on lately and what's coming. So needs to be touched on I'd say but I understand it gets tiresome real quick.

I grew up elsewhere and poor by US standards. Didn't know anybody who ever owned a brand new car unless it was a company car owned by work or they were legit rich. The ONE kid in school who had satellite TV was bullied so unmercifully for being "rich" he had to move schools. I was lucky enough to be taught about the never-never plan. You never-never buy stuff on payments unless you are going to make more in returns than the interest paid. So basically a house, business or education (college is free there anyway) and that's it. And mostly hanging out in the 3rd gen forum where frugality and practicality is the ethos coming to the 5th gen section is a culture shock with people paying way over msrp for special colors and such. After hanging in the 3rd gen section for years I'm also lucky enough to have the tools and knowledge at this point where 150k miles on a used 4runner is as good as brand new to me.

Most of it can probably be explained by FOMO because of the lack of availability. Fear of missing out. Some from this new age of instagram marketing. And just to play devil's advocate there's a possibility things just keep inflating and these high prices will look like good deals in a few years... who knows.

I'm also pretty much apolitical (could label me all kinds of stuff) like you mentioned up above and heard an interesting concept recently. Maybe you heard of the red-pill, blue-pill and black-pill... well I'd say I'm clear-pilled. For anyone interested and not too busy working over-time to pay these damn tires prices here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC3bMJGG5h8

The stock size you cited comes in at 31.6 x 10.4. Your new size would be both larger and wider. I’m putting my money on it rubbing.

Biggest size with any chance at clearing lock to lock is 275/55R20 which, ignoring the wheel size, would be a 31.9 X 10.8 outside dimensions.

That size is even iffy because some people rub at full lock and some don’t. Down to the BRAND and style of tire, which is down to 0.1” differences of rubbing or not.

Most cars steering wheels turn 1.5 rotations before full lock. Our 4Runners get 1.25. I don’t know if we can afford any LESS turning ability than that!




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