Sliders or Tires first?

Headed up to the Michigan UP next week.
I know its wayyy too late to get sliders.

Would you -
Order sliders to be better prepped for the next adventure.
Get 265/75/16 Wildpeaks (Stock OR wheels) and sell the stock Wranglers with ~4k miles on them.

Ive read mixed reviews on the wranglers.. nothing but awesome reviews on the wildpeaks..

Plan is forrest service roads and 2 tracks. Camping and hiking. No real crawling now but would like to do Drummond Island next year.

 

Definitely tires first

 

Based on where you're going, tires.

 

More backstory -
From Ohio, so primary wheeling will be midwest. Not a ton of rock crawling, but still want sliders for peace of mind.

 

Tires

 

Tires

 

Tires

 

Agreed, tires.

 

Well this seems to be unanimous..

Any coupons or rebates on the Falkens now? Looks like I can get the tires for ~$590 off Ebay and Discount Tire said the would match that, but will charge for mount/balancing. Any better deals?


Also - ballpark guess on value of stock wranglers with 4k miles? $250? $350?

 

Discount Tire would be a good choice, I've never had any issues with them. Had a couple Nokia tires that were out of round and could not balance out. They replaced them at no charge. As far as mounting and balancing the new tires, won't you have to pay that anyway for the eBay tires?

 

Sliders. Tires can be replaced easily and at any time. In the slim chance you damage a rocker, that will be more expensive to repair than the cost of tires and sliders

 

Tires, but maybe consider keeping the stock wranglers. Seems like they should be fine for most forest roads.

I prefer to stick to service roads and 2 tracks and try to spend more time hiking than driving. I sold my wranglers and got toyo at's. I believe they have saved me from a couple punctures and dug me out of some mud a couple times which would've given the wranglers some trouble, but the mpg hit is real and they are very loud compared to the wranglers.

I also had rock sliders. Did two trips with them and never came close to touching down. I decided they weren't worth the weight and trouble of removing them every year to repaint the frame.

Point is it's easy to get sucked into dumping a ton of money into stuff you don't need. On the east coast, we have to drive 8-12 hours to see some different terrain, so highway comfort is important. We also travel alone, so once we get there I'm not trying to test the limits of my truck. Just some food for thought.

 

Tires. Sliders won't protect anything if you can't get there first.

 

I sold my stock Goodyear Kevlar tires for $300 after upgrading them at 2500 miles. Had them on Craig’s list and TW at $400 but didn't expect to sell them at that price. I settled for $300 but was hoping for a bit more. I have Falken Wildpeaks now and love them. I agree with the consensus here- tires first and then sliders. Have fun on your trip!

 

Thanks for the insight MDFM31, seems we are in similar situations.

From what I have read I should only see a 1mpg loss with the Wildpeaks.

I do have access to a mounter and balancer that I could use for free, but not before next weeks trip as its back in my home town. Also when thinking about it, $17 or so per tire isnt that bad, and they assume the liability if a tire wont balance.. seems like it is worth it.

 

Did you include the spare?

Debating on if I need to do the spare or not.. size difference isnt that much. Risk of damage seems low if I minimize time spent on the spare.

 

For your current trip it would seem nothing is 'needed'.

That said, an upgrade in tire capability combined with driver skill / judgement and you'll be able to do lots more than you think.

 

Im sure the Wranglers could handle it, but I do like to be over prepared. That combined with the reviews on mileage for the Wranglers of 30-35k and Wildpeaks pushing 55k, seems the economics support ditching the Wranglers for some cash now with the bonus upgrade of a better tire tread and slightly taller tire.

I'm also trying to talk myself into more truck upgrades haha

 

After I replaced my rims with 17'" and tires with 265/70/17s I read a bunch of posts about spare tire size and there were mixed opinions. From what i read it seemed like low risk not to have them all match. (some suggested swapping spare to front in the event of a flat rear, others said different tire sizes could mess with the differential and others said don't sweat it for an emergency) I ended up buying a 5th Sema wheel, used with a scratch on it and put a Falken on it. Probably could have gone with stock spare for emergency use.

 

I did sliders first. Not regretting it so far. The stock tires do suck (I have had to winch out already) but I figure better tires are much more likely to get me somewhere that I need the armor and damage my baby. Until she's paid off I'd rather not do that. That said, if you're going alone with stock tires have a recovery plan, which is actually good advice with or without stock tires.