Decisions on Tires...

My C cooper at3's have been very cut and chip resistant, but gas mileage has suffered. I will go to an SL Hankook next time. Just because the stock SL tires are not very cut resistant doesn't mean they all are. I had SL Hankooks on my last truck and they were great. Those goodyears are probably more like an 80/20 highway tire then more aggressive SL AT's. They are extremely light of you look up the specs. 34lbs iirc (265/70). My coopers are 47 (265/75). The Hankooks i like are 39 (265/75)

 

I have the Cooper Discoverer AT3 LT 265/75/16, it's a 6ply C tire. They're great OR and just OK on the road. I also had the 6112s up front set for 1.8" lift. Ended up running in to a lot of harshness on the road because my truck is pretty light (2.7L access cab) so I downgraded to some protruck Eibachs with stock springs. I was getting a lot of vibrations running up through the cab and steering steering wheel after the Billy 6112s and Coopers. Less vibes now with lighter suspension up front. A few months later I noticed some dampness under the steering rack while I was removing the diff drop I installed earlier. Didn't think much of it until I just went for an alignment yesterday, many months later, and my tech showed me my steering rack is leaking and needs to be replaced. It's a $2,100 job at the dealership. Most likely, it was caused by the lift and the tires because I don't do any rock crawling or extreme wheeling. Now I'm also here looking for some recommendations for a lighter tire.

I sure do hope your experience goes much better than mine did! I did a little bit of searching on here last night about steering racks and apparently the OEM racks are much more likely to crap the bed the heavier and larger your tires are.

I really want a 255/80/r16 but it's pretty much a unicorn tire. Not sure I really want/need 33" with the 85. I'm shooting for 40lbs or less this time around to avoid any more costly repairs.

 

SL has both standard SL (no P, also called euro metric) and P-metric SL. They also both have XL tires as well, so total there are about 4 different types of passenger load tires, depending on what’s available in a size.

Euro Metric are usually a bit stronger/firmer than P-metric, but it depends. P-metric originated in North America, Euro came from Europe.

Then you have the LT category which has LT metric and LT high flotation. High flotation are the inch sizes, aka 33x12.5R17. They are all rated to some letter designation, B/C/D/E/F.

 

C and E tires generally are resistant to cut and chips more so than SLs, but you do make valid point that some tires are harder than others. Issue is that you won't know what are more chip/cut resistant until you try out the tires.

So for my use case (truck is exclusively for fun/overlanding), I'd prefer to stay safe and buy C or E tires at the cost of MPG loss and stiffer ride.

 

I like my E load Wildpeaks, but loved my Duratracs more. Will be going back to them when it's time to replace.

 

Sorry to hear that man. I could be wrong, but I don't think I've heard steering rack going bad b/c of the heavy tires. I'm a novice mechanic - Could it be the shocks b/c of change in bunch of angles?

If you don't do much offroading that warrant heavy tires, I think you'd OK with lighter tires.

EDIT to Add: I think steering rack leak is a common problem with 3gen tacomas

 

255?

 

Wildpeaks are 33" 255, my Duratracs where 32" 265/75/16. They didn't make a 255 Duratrac.

 

This time it's covered under my warranty, but next time it's on me. I'm not a mechanic at all, so I can't speak with certainty as to why - but I am the first owner, noticed the issue starting a couple months after the upgrades and now I'm getting a steering rack replaced at 35k miles. I think it's at least something to consider while tire shopping haha

 

you just had bad luck, unfortunately. I hit the rocks or desert a couple times a month on 35s and 80k miles (bought new) - no steering component replacements. All of my buddies with 3rd gen’s haven’t had any steering issues on 33s and my steering rack never had an issue until I slapped on 37s recently. Tie rods don’t like rocks after that. Steering rack leaks typically happen from the rack mounting bolt bushings breaking and the steering rack jolting around.