Why 265/75 R16?

I'm sorry if this has been explained but I didn't find an answer.

I recently purchased a 2017 TRD OR with the stock tires. I need to replace the tires before heading up into the mountains.

The truck is a back-up daily driver and will see fire roads and some moderate off-roading to get to campsites. I won't do any hardcore crawling.

What's the reason everyone seems to upgrade to 265/75? Is it primarily for looks and lift since it's a bit taller? Does the extra side wall help at all when airing down?

Is the only downside a potential loss in fuel economy?

Thanks,

 

its just the biggest size that fits stock suspension fine. nothing more than that really

 

So what's the advantage? I certainly understand the desire to add lift but is it mostly just for looks? Any disadvantage?

 

its 1" bigger..so thats a half in lift..not a big deal, its literally just to look cooler

 

More sidewall is pretty much the only advantage. I went from a 265/65R17 to a 265/75R16 and I gained like 2 inches of sidewall. It can be aired down a lot more and I think it performs better offroad.

 

Looks like cost is the same, or cheaper, so I guess I'm not seeing any reason not to go with the 75s over the 70s.

 

If you like the look, go for it. Any advantage or disadvantage is negligible.

 

That's not a 2" sidewall difference. It's a 1" sidewall difference and 1/2" of additional ground clearance. Normally, people are sticking with the same size wheel which means they would only gain 1/2" of sidewall clearance with a 31.5" tire compared to the stock 30.5" tire. By downsizing the wheel you were able to get an additional 1/2".

 

Disadvantage?

My experience with 265/75/16 after 6years/35,000 miles on KO2s...

When you increase tire diameter and/or change offset, you change the scrub radius. Our trucks come with a small bit of positive scrub radius; maybe 1/8"-1/4". Increasing to 265/75/16 takes away about 4mm of positive scrub; your scrub radius is now effectively zero.

The effect of zero scrub radius is the tire will scrub in the opposite direction of rotation during a turn(aka tire squirm). This causes excessive outside wear and sqeuaking rubber. The outside wear on mine is 9/32" vs 12/32" on the inside. This, combined with my camber spec(+0.5)has also lead to unequal deflection from side-to-side.

Also, when a greater force is applied to either the inboard or outboard side of the tread width, the tire/wheel will steer in that direction; an effect similar to bump steer and can feel darty in straight lines.


That said, there are two ways to 'fix' it.
A 4mm wheel spacer; which is a no-go for me, because it would have to be a plate-style spacer. It would lessen the stud length/lug engagement and hub engagement.
The other way is through a 'custom' camber adjustment with less positive camber. The factory camber spec is +0.5(+/- 0.75).

I will be replacing my 265/75/16 with 265/75/16 and get it aligned with a +0.1 camber setting.

 

I think I'm going to stick with stock, solely for the reason that my spare is stock size. I don't want to buy 5 new tires.