Advantages of a smaller tire?

In a stock truck, no. You aren't limited in wheel travel by the size of the tire under most circumstances. Now certainly, if we're talking about tires that barely fit when the truck sits level, then yeah. Usually though, the increased clearance is more beneficial than any loss of wheel travel that could possibly happen under extreme conditions. I'd rather have some tire rubbing than lose ground clearance.

 

I guess this is really where my question was coming from. The 265/70/R16 size is as big as you can go stock. So if I upgraded suspension with a 2.5" and get SPCs, and don't upgrade my tires, sounds like that would be a-ok. Esp since I wouldn't need to worry about regearing.

 

Sure, many people do a lift without changing tires. Whether it's a benefit or not depends on the lift. Ideally, a lift gives you more suspension travel, not just a higher stance, although some actually limit up or down travel depending on the design. If it's a good lift, you will still benefit with stock tires. If it's a crappy lift, well, it doesn't matter what you do with the tires.

 

Makes Frontiers go faster too.

 

If you view everything from the perspective of clearance off road then naturally larger diameter tires are always better. But things get painful really fast with a cascade of upgrades and other consequences once you go past about 32". You can slap a 33" on without doing much of anything but it ends up being kind of half-assed usually without a fair bit of trimming here and there. And you've gained a whopping 0.5" of clearance for that pain. Past 33" you need a lot of mods.

Personally I run LT235/85R16 in a load E which is already a pretty heavy tire which has a pretty negative impact on mileage. Taking as durable a tire as that up to even larger sizes and thing get ugly fast.

Of course there are plenty of folks on here with 35" or larger and that works just fine when done right and can of course be worth the trade off in expense and loss of MPG if you frequent terrain where it matters. But it gets really expensive to do it "right".

 

I just don’t believe guys here are wheeling hard enough to warrant worrying about clearance, though I do believe this... big meaty tires look cool