Harlock
Member
Time for new tires for my 2007 SR5 4WD. Because this vehicle is my daily driver with 75%+ of the driving being on the highway, it was important to me to get a tire with good fuel economy. However, I am an also an avid camper with hundreds of nights spent in the great outdoors. While the vast majority has been with a 40L backpack, I'm not getting any younger and the speed and ease of vehicle-based camping the overlanding community promotes has caught my eye. This meant finding a tire with good road manners that could also provide reasonable offroad performance. So I began researching All Terrain tires with the following goals:
After considering all my choices, I decided on the Toyo Open Country AT3 265/75/R16 in Standard Load. As I'm not planning to do any aggressive off-roading or heavy towing, avoiding the E Load tire saves me 9 pounds per tire.
This is a 31.6" tire vs. the stock 30.6" tire, meaning I'd gain half an inch of ground clearance. I never could determine with absolute certainty from previous threads if this size is supposed to fit with no lift or if it should have a 1/0 lift. But I can say that on my bone-stock suspension I have no rubbing lock to lock and appear to have plenty of travel clearance - though I have yet to put the suspension through it's maximum flex. The stock mud guards don't interfere. Because I also replaced the spare, I can also say this size fits in the tire carrier space below with no problem whatsoever.
Here are some pics:
Front wheel well with stock Toyota rake:
Back wheel well:
Spare Tire:
In the Standard Load rating I chose, these tires have a 65,000 warranty and have a three peak snowflake rating. I do like the rather aggressive sidewall appearance. I'm going to be adding a roof rack and might as well have some fun owning the look I'm going to end up having.
I'll note that these are white outline letter tires that are turned around to the back sides. When I went to buy them, I tried serveral retailers and learned that there were only 3 black sidewall tires in the entire country.
So far I have driven 540 miles on these tires and am really liking them. The ride is smooth. The extra sidewall adds a noticeable cushion making the ride a little more comfortable. The sound is excellent. They as they are as quiet as regular highway tires. I've driven them on roads in dry and wet conditions and on dry gravel and they have been entirely unremarkable in consistently providing good traction and handling. The stone ejectors work well. I cannot detect any loss of drivetrain power.
I have to also confess a weird feeling of completeness having Toyos on a Toyota with both products being...
So how is fuel economy? These tires are 41 pounds per corner. They replace a set of standard size Futura Scrambler 265/70/R16 AT tires (a bargain Pep Boys brand) that I cannot find weight ratings on but I'm guessing are in the 37-38 lb. range. I've tested my fuel economy computer and, like many, have found it to be almost exactly 2 MPG above the actual fill-up measurements I've recorded.
On the smaller Futura tires, my absolute best reading was 22 MPG. My best on the larger Toyos so far is 20.9 MPG. Factoring in the 3.3% circumference increase, this works out to 21.6 MPG. In typical driving I usually averaged 21.5 MPG on the stock size tire. On the current tire I'm averaging about 20.6 MPG which works out to 21.3 MPG. Thus, my actual MPG loss going to the larger tire after 540 miles looks like this:
Average Driving:
Old Stock Tire: 19.5 MPG
New Larger Tire: 19.3 MPG
Maximum Economy:
Old Stock Tire: 20.0 MPG
New Larger Tire: 19.6 MPG
- Long life (my current winner is the set of Michelin LTX tires I ran 105,000 miles).
- Largest size possible on a stock suspension to increase ground clearance while saving money for other mods.
- Light weight to minimize fuel economy and engine performance losses from sizing up.
- True all-weather performance to improve safety in unexpected adverse conditions I've found myself in on occasion.
- Keep the stock wheel to again save money for other mods. I also prefer the larger sidewall the 16-inch size allows.
After considering all my choices, I decided on the Toyo Open Country AT3 265/75/R16 in Standard Load. As I'm not planning to do any aggressive off-roading or heavy towing, avoiding the E Load tire saves me 9 pounds per tire.
This is a 31.6" tire vs. the stock 30.6" tire, meaning I'd gain half an inch of ground clearance. I never could determine with absolute certainty from previous threads if this size is supposed to fit with no lift or if it should have a 1/0 lift. But I can say that on my bone-stock suspension I have no rubbing lock to lock and appear to have plenty of travel clearance - though I have yet to put the suspension through it's maximum flex. The stock mud guards don't interfere. Because I also replaced the spare, I can also say this size fits in the tire carrier space below with no problem whatsoever.
Here are some pics:
Front wheel well with stock Toyota rake:
Back wheel well:
Spare Tire:
In the Standard Load rating I chose, these tires have a 65,000 warranty and have a three peak snowflake rating. I do like the rather aggressive sidewall appearance. I'm going to be adding a roof rack and might as well have some fun owning the look I'm going to end up having.
I'll note that these are white outline letter tires that are turned around to the back sides. When I went to buy them, I tried serveral retailers and learned that there were only 3 black sidewall tires in the entire country.
So far I have driven 540 miles on these tires and am really liking them. The ride is smooth. The extra sidewall adds a noticeable cushion making the ride a little more comfortable. The sound is excellent. They as they are as quiet as regular highway tires. I've driven them on roads in dry and wet conditions and on dry gravel and they have been entirely unremarkable in consistently providing good traction and handling. The stone ejectors work well. I cannot detect any loss of drivetrain power.
I have to also confess a weird feeling of completeness having Toyos on a Toyota with both products being...
So how is fuel economy? These tires are 41 pounds per corner. They replace a set of standard size Futura Scrambler 265/70/R16 AT tires (a bargain Pep Boys brand) that I cannot find weight ratings on but I'm guessing are in the 37-38 lb. range. I've tested my fuel economy computer and, like many, have found it to be almost exactly 2 MPG above the actual fill-up measurements I've recorded.
On the smaller Futura tires, my absolute best reading was 22 MPG. My best on the larger Toyos so far is 20.9 MPG. Factoring in the 3.3% circumference increase, this works out to 21.6 MPG. In typical driving I usually averaged 21.5 MPG on the stock size tire. On the current tire I'm averaging about 20.6 MPG which works out to 21.3 MPG. Thus, my actual MPG loss going to the larger tire after 540 miles looks like this:
Average Driving:
Old Stock Tire: 19.5 MPG
New Larger Tire: 19.3 MPG
Maximum Economy:
Old Stock Tire: 20.0 MPG
New Larger Tire: 19.6 MPG
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