Tire and suspension questions
 

I know there are a lot of posts on this but I am very new to all of this and it's all hard for me to wrap my head around it all so please have patience with me.
That being said,

Can someone explain a chalk test

Also getting my 5th gen and first this coming February when my Tundra lease is up. Looking at a trd.offrosd premium.
I don't go off roading but deal with nasty weather and when I go camping I also deal with dirt roads some not that forgiving but 98% of the time it will be my daily driver.
I am so a vol fire police in a very country woodsy town and sometimes end up in some not so forgiving locations while on a call.
I also have a corolla and there are times I have to take it places I'm afraid of the tires giving out due to where I have to take it on calls as when my pager goes off it doesn't matter what I am driving I have to respond to the call.

I have heard mixed reviews in the nitto grappler tires for regular winter road driving but also heard alot of good things about the KOs and I heard Cooper makes a decent tire as well.

Any suggestions for a tire size and rating I can throw on factory wheels to get better ground clearance without trimming and I do eventually plan in upgrading to the bilsein 5100 shocks to get more ground clearance just don't want to have to change out the ucas and plan to reuse factory springs if at all possible only looking for 1.5-2.5" lift at most front and back.

Since it will be my daily driver I do need to keep decent mpg and also can't break the bank in tires now that I have a son who is my first kid on the way.

Thanks everyone.

So you're planning to modify a leased vehicle?

No the tundra I have now is leased, the lease ends in February which is when I am going to buy my 4runner looking at a trd offroad premium that will be modded.

275/70/17 tires: Wildpeaks are popular but I have no first hand experience with the. KO2s are good but can be hard to balance.

Suspension - do Bilsteins and done.

275/70/17 Wildpeaks (the ever most popular tire for the T4R)
Bilstein 5100 front & rear + Daystar 1.5" spacers.

This is the cheapest setup you can get and more than enough tire/lift for your camping requirements on national forest roads. Set the front shocks to the 2.5" setting. No UCA or any trimming needed.

I have had KO2 on several of my off road vehicles and have likes them. I have not had a balance problem, but I have heard of others with that problem.

This is very true, I have had KO2 and had no problem balancing them but had a friend get them recently and ran into issues balancing them.

Another Wildpeak fan here. I ran 265 with no issue and just upgraded to 275 and they are great. Great price point, no issues balancing, and they perform very well on snow/off-road. As stated, Bilstein is simple and you can add spacers. Definitely cheapest route for what you want. If you stay with stock rims you won't rub.

What every one says, KO2s at 275/70/17 only come in E and they're heavy, but pretty much bulletproof, you will not have to worry about flats unless you really try. Falkens, never owned them, but I see others with them do incredible things. Toyo AT3s are great on-road slush/heavy rain, I can't make them hydroplane if I want to, most confident tire in the rain or slush I've owed.

275/70 will fit without lift, without any rubbing that you can't fix with moving the plastic or using a zip tie to compress your front mud flaps.

Billies are widely used, as is the Eibach suspension, Dobinsons is also very good--better endurance, and if you get your spring rate right, very good ride.

Replacing the stock tires is no brainer, the stock 4runner can do impressive things with them, but they are the weakest part of the vehicle. Go with stock for first few thousand miles, figure our the weakness and improve it with a mod. Don't just mod for sake of modding or looking good, when you sink few K$ you want to at least know it's making a difference.